Posts Tagged ‘Bubble Wrap’

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How To Lower Your Shipping Costs With Wholesale Shipping Supplies, Part I

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

Wholesale shipping supplies, such as bubble wrap, shipping paper, and corrugated boxes are among the top three highest overhead costs in fulfillment operations. If you run a fulfillment business, or perform your own fulfillment in-house, following these tips for reducing costs will help you reduce your shipping costs, and find the best quality wholesale shipping supplies.

Here is Part 1 of tips for reducing shipping costs:

1. Blanket Purchase Orders
While developing relationships with suppliers, most operations will buy small volumes of shipping supplies at advertised prices. As the need for volume increases, you will then want to contact your supplier’s sales department to negotiate a standard, blanket order with discounts for volume that you can submit monthly. Not only does this lower your cost for shipping materials, it also streamlines your materials ordering for better inventory management.

2. Carefully Weigh The ROI On Volume Discounts
While the unit cost of shipping supplies decreases as the volume of supplies ordered increases, ordering extra quantity requires an investment in extra units, as well as maintaining an inventory of supplies. In order for volume discounts to work, extra savings due to the discount must be divided by the additional investment. This quotient is then compared to the rate of return you can get from other investments.

3. Set Blanket Orders Subject To Batch Releases
Even if investing in extra units of shipping supplies yields a low ROI, you may be able to get around this by placing blanket orders subject to batch releases. This means that rather than ordering monthly, you only order new inventory of shipping supplies, when you need it. This results in a more efficient budget for shipping materials, and lower cost of maintaining inventory. It negates the cost of your investment for volume discounts by spreading it out over the maximum time window.

Stay tuned for more tips to help you lower your shipping costs in Part 2!

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Prepare For Long-Term Storage With Wholesale Packing Supplies

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

Whether you are moving or just need to free up some more space in your home, long-term storage offers many advantages. However, before placing items in storage for a long time, there are a few guidelines you need to know to protect your stuff from insects, the elements, and dust.

Here are four guidelines to packing items for long-term storage:

1. Get the right packing supplies
Contact your packaging supplier to order wholesale packing supplies to store your items. At the minimum you will need strong, sturdy boxes, some filling/padding material, and packing tape.

2. Pad boxes before packing
Especially before packing delicate, fragile items, it’s important to provide adequate cushioning for your stuff. Pad boxes from the inside with newspaper, plastic bags, or ideally unprinted packing paper. This layer of padding also helps protect against moisture.

3. Use shrink wrap
This is particularly important if you are opting for an outdoor or non-climate controlled storage unit. Shrink wrapping your items and boxes can help protect them from the layers of dust and grime that will inevitably build up over the months and years. This is an absolute must for rugs and padded furniture that have porous, dust-absorbing surfaces.

4. Use moving pads
To protect your stuff from unexpected falls, shocks, and vibrations both while in storage and during the moving process, use moving pads. This gives you one more layer of protection on top of the shrink wrap you are already using.

By now you should have a solid understanding of how to prepare your stuff for long-term storage. It’s not difficult to get items ready for storage, but a few precautions upfront will ensure that when you finally take items out of storage, they’ll still be in great condition.

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How To Use Discount Packaging Supplies To Facilitate Learning In The Classroom

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

As a teacher, it is a constant struggle for you to come up with creative ways to engage your students, without breaking your budget. One great way to save money while coming up with unique and stimulating lesson plans, is to use discount packaging supplies as learning tools! Here are several ways to use packaging supplies to help educate your students.

Bubble Wrap
The satisfaction of popping a bubble of bubble wrap is something that simply cannot be denied. Whether as a toy to increase sensory perception in very young children, or as an art medium for your students to create interesting sculptures, bubble wrap makes for a great learning tool. Finally, bubble wrap can be a great tool if you’re doing the famous “Egg Drop” lesson plan.

Boxes
Corrugated cardboard boxes, especially in different sizes, can be a handy tool for discussing concepts of space and volume in mathematics or science classes. Consider having your students measure the boxes and calculate the volume and surface area of each one. A great lesson plan would be for them to explain what box should contain which items, based on fit and volume.

Mailing Tubes
Whether as a way for you to store and organize bulletin board materials, or as a learning implement for students, mailing tubes are a great addition to any classroom. It can help students learn to deal with circles and cylinders, or help students with a wide variety of arts and crafts projects.

Kraft Paper
Laid across a grouping of desks, kraft paper can be a great method to encourage students to work as teams to solve problems. Students will love the concept of simply writing directly on their desks rather than in notebooks or loose sheets of paper.

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Everything You Need to Know About Shipping and Packaging Holiday Gifts

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Follow these tips for shipping and packaging your holiday gifts this year.

Christmas is coming fast and it’s time to start thinking about shipping and packaging your gifts so they arrive to their destinations in time for the joyous holiday. So after you’ve done all of your shopping and you’re ready to pack and ship, read these tips from Fox News to ensure your gifts don’t get broken or damaged in the mail.

  • Use plenty of bubble wrap. Make sure the bubbles are on the inside and they adhere to the item.
  • Secure the bubble wrap with painter’s tape because it’s easy to remove.
  • If you want to wrap the gifts before you ship, do so, but make sure they’re then placed in a larger shipping box.
  • When labeling your box, include a complete address and return address. Make sure to include the recipient’s name, address, zip code, city, state, apartment number and directionals such as northeast and northwest.
  • Ship as early as possible. The longer you wait, the more shipping will cost you. You can still mail for regular first class rates up until December 20. The busiest week for mail will be the week of December 13.
  • Make sure to use a new box. If you can’t make sure the old addresses on the box are blacked out so no confusion occurs.

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