shipping boxes.

trying to ship out some e stuff. and want proper boxes.

first stop, post office large box $7

secound ups, large box $9

last stop, Uhaul large box WE HAVE A WINNER $3

obviously free boxes would be preferable, but my transportation situation is limited at best. so I have to do what I have to do. also usps, ups et al have peramitors on measurements of the boxes they ship, extra charges for boxes not fitting their specs, and of course they have custom boxes with measurements that dont fit the norm, all designed of course to try to force you to buy their $9 boxes. sounds like a petty thing but it is not for me. an over price of $6 versis uhaul x 5 is a sizable percentage of my net profit near 5%. just my .02

i pick mine up at work. i use the flat rate box's to ship because as u said, they charge more for custom box's. earlier this month i sent some patch panels to ct and shipping was super pricey

As long as the the length plus girth is less then 84 inches USPS will take it as a regualr package. Ive fit 67 pounds of motherboards in a box this size and it cost me about $42 to ship it. Total weight was 70 pounds which is max for USPS. I think you can get better rates with the larger uhaul boxes and fedex though.

Walmart = free.

OK i say down and did all the comparisons. I did it with 100 and 150 pounds. Its cheaper to ship 2 or 3 50 pound boxes with USPS parcel post then it is to ship the same weight with either fed ex or UPS. So unless you have enuff to send a gaylord box just jam as much as you can in a box and fill it up to 70 pounds total and ship it USPS parcel post. Unless your buyer is paying the shipping because they get special rates with fedex. or something. My numbers where using the websites.

Check the freecycle in your area. I constantly see messages of free boxes on the one here. I don't have a problem with boxes as we always have a giant bin full of them at work for recycling.

Home Depot has a great selection of moving boxes for cheap.

You might want to check with large screen printing and embroidery places. T-shirt places are great for large boxes.

Also, sign shops have lots of tubes from the cores of the vinyl rolls that can be used for shipping. Heck, I'll even save my tubes for anyone that wants them. I use snap-seal tubes to ship and toss my cores. (doesn't make much sense at first but the cores weigh more than shipping tubes). Sign places get cool long rectangular boxes too. They are great for shipping lots of awkward shaped items.

When I ship my ewaste I use FedEx ground and so need to keep my boxes below 70lbs. I used to rely on dumpster diving for boxes, and I still do it from time to time, but I also realized that sometimes it's easier to buy a bunch of standard ones, and they are not that expensive. For instance, when I ship a bunch of scrap laptops, I use these from HD. They also have heavy duty ones but I managed with regular ones (and maybe some extra packing tape).

Use mediums/larges for other types of scrap

Hint: Starbucks throws away some great boxes! They are usually already folded up and ready to load in your car.
They are sturdy enough to ship stuff in. Just ask the folks behind the counter.

We have a free recycling center in town. That's where I get all my boxes. They're usually folded flat, and ripe for the picking. I can go down their with my station wagon or truck, and grab enough for the next six months.

They also take gutted CRTs for free :D

If that fails, our town has cardboard recycling dumpsters. There's almost always free boxes in there.

It might be a NZ thing, but I use 'banana boxes'.
The supermarket stacks them out back every Tuesday, there's normally.a few other people getting them.
They have a hole in the bottom so I have to line it with something, they also have holes in the ends as carrying handles so you can carry them.
Low profile but easy to stack.