Thread of Packaging Excellence

[gorbasho]

I thought it might be fun to have a place to share pictures of the terrible ways we receive our sets (sarcastic thread title), whether it's pancaked sets, oversized boxes, etc.

 

I'll start with my SSDs that arrived a couple days ago:

 

 

Enormous box:

 

 

 

Three sets inside, with no packaging material. Third set is underneath the top two, and was crushed with all 4 seals popped:

 

 

 

This box came to me today. What could be inside? A couple Death Stars? 60 Minecraft sets?

 

 

 

Nope, just one HH and about a kilometer of air pouches:

 

At least they actually padded this one, and I'll have enough pouches to last a while lol. But of course the set just had to have a hole on the back side...more returning to do.

 

 

Curious to see others' photos

[Guest TabbyBoy]

Just send the lot back explaining why. Damaged boxes will reallly hurt values and cost you more in the long term. If enough of us do that, retailers will finally get their act together.

[chopstick]

It still looks better than shipping labels applied directly to the lego box.

[gorbasho]

It still looks better than shipping labels applied directly to the lego box.

Don't worry, Walmart was kind enough to give me one of those too.

 

[naf]

I posted this elsewhere, but it's relevant to this thread to.  I ordered a handful of baseplates from yoyo, they came in a gigantic box.  It was full of those air packs, but they were still sliding around a lot on the bottom fo the box.  Luckily none were broken.

 

[Bold-Arrow]

HD from TRU..."sealed"

[@rtisan]

Ouch you guys! Got to wonder what these packers are smoking when they do things like this. In all of these cases, all they needed to do was grab a smaller box. Add a small bit of packing, and everything is good. No need to get fancy. Of course when sellers here ship to customers, we should go out of our way to ensure excellent shipping, just as a curtesy, and people will pay for it if they know what they are getting. "Free Shipping" is great and all, but I`ll happily pay $5 more for a $200 set if I know it will be shipped better, even $10 for further packaging. Certainly there are plenty of other investors who would gladly do the same?

[Fcbarcelona101]

Just send the lot back explaining why. Damaged boxes will reallly hurt values and cost you more in the long term. If enough of us do that, retailers will finally get their act together.

 

From my own experience, box condition really does not affect the value of most sets.

[Bold-Arrow]

........Walmart

[exciter1]

Toysrus,.com - A lone Unimog with zero padding in a HUGE box.

 

[allen9917]

Thanks for bringing back the painful memory of shipping label on a lego box....

[TWO2SEVEN]

Before my son was born we got a lot of gifts shipped to us from TRU/BRU. I would get excited when it was a big box, I learned my lesson after the first few.

Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

[holleman67]

To the left, two tower bridges in the Lego packing box. To the right my other 3 tower bridges. The right box is now the home to 3 tower bridges, 2 ge's, and a vw camper. Could fit another camper but it'd be a tight squeeze.

Thanks walmart!

[knarrff]

From my own experience, box condition really does not affect the value of most sets.

That sounds like the B&****** store manage a couple of weeks back that would only give some discount for a really bad box in store after a long talk, always stating "It is only the inside that counts, and that is there. A bad box does not devalue the set." What are these people thinking?

[gorbasho]

Picked up a site to store order today with what appears to be chocolate under one of the labels...wtf walmart

 

 

[MartinP]

Are you sure that that is chocolate?

[gorbasho]

Pretty sure, although I resisted the temptation to taste it, so I can't say for certain

[legone]

Toysrus,.com - A lone Unimog with zero padding in a HUGE box.

 

How can you still order a Unimog from Toysrus.com? I couldn't

[inversion]

I regret that I did not take pictures of my Robie House. It arrived in a box 3x larger than the set without filling. It was so thrashed that I just stood there staring at it for minutes, with questions circulating in my mind: Just why? Is there an explanation? Is life worth living?

 

Apparently Architecture sets use premium boxes for a reason, they are part of their appeal. When I took it back to their nearest store the clerk was horrified, he never saw anything like it. He just handed me the cash without a word, his expression told me everything: who the f*** could have been this stupid, seriously? 

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

Picked up a site to store order today with what appears to be chocolate under one of the labels...wtf walmart

Are you sure that that is chocolate?

 

Yeah, in the words of Dave Chappelle: "It might be Doo Doo!"

[Guest TabbyBoy]

Maybe one of their guard dogs crimped one off in the packing area?

[vmnlogan]

Ouch you guys! Got to wonder what these packers are smoking when they do things like this. In all of these cases, all they needed to do was grab a smaller box. Add a small bit of packing, and everything is good. No need to get fancy. Of course when sellers here ship to customers, we should go out of our way to ensure excellent shipping, just as a curtesy, and people will pay for it if they know what they are getting. "Free Shipping" is great and all, but I`ll happily pay $5 more for a $200 set if I know it will be shipped better, even $10 for further packaging. Certainly there are plenty of other investors who would gladly do the same?

I'm pretty sure the packers just don't understand what they are packing. They see "Lego", think "toy" to themselves, and figure a kid is going to rip it open and destroy the box anyway. I doubt they have a display that tells them the cost of the item. If it did, I could easily see a couple hourly box packers doing a double-take and then starting up a conversation with their buddies.

"Hey, Gene. Look at this!" (holds up SSD box) "Can you believe somebody's paying $400 for a friggin' toy?"

"What the hell? I can make a car payment for that! Stupid people with too much money."

Which is how I ended up receiving a crunched box from Target with a SSD that looks like it pissed off Ike Turner. Oh, there were a few air packets, but they were all on the face side of the box, nothing on the sides or between the back of the box and the shipping box. I guess I'm just glad it wasn't shipped like the Wal-Mart examples here with the labels right on the product....

[mlussardi9614]

I just received some sets i ordered from amazon, This was the first time Ive ordered from amazon. I ordered 7 sets and they was all shipped on top of each other in a large flat box with little padding. The smaller set have been crushed. Is this something I can expect ordering from amazon. Also can I return them as I said I'm unfamiliar with there practicalities?

[sjbdeebo2]

They have been shipping lego with inadequate padding for a while. But recently I've noticed they have been shipping without any padding and in boxes much smaller.

I have complained several times about this and either get a discount or replacement.

[Jackson]

Receiving damaged items from retailers is one of the most frustrating aspects of reselling.  I receive damaged items way too often.  Most retailers will send you a free label to return damaged items.