Efficient shipping

[Tom NJ]

Some may not find this humorous from an environmental standpoint, but it gave me a giggle.

I was shopping online for some furnace filters, and after pricing them at the usual venders like Amazon and Walmart I was surprised to find them at a lower price on Chewy.com, the pet food site! Since my wife shops there regularly for cat food and gets free shipping, I decided to add the filters to her orders. I was curious as to how they would ship them and hoped they would not stuff them into the boxes filled with heavy cat food cans.

Well they didn't! Instead these huge boxes began arriving. The boxes are 2.5 to 3 feet high and 2 to 2.5 feet deep, and three of the boxes contained just one filter each! The last box had three. I can't believe they made any profit on this sale! Helps to do a little thinking before expanding your product line outside your base.

 

[2005jettatdi]

Costco does that too. Sometimes I order tri fold paper towels from them. The boxed paper towels come in an eve bigger box that I then have to get rid of.

 

[Jetronic]

I doubt they even came from the same warehouse as the cat food to be honest. They likely never had any filters in stock. Like amazon sells stuff from 3rd party.

But a good deal is a good deal!

 

[opus1]

This one puzzles me - not sure why it didn't go out in a padded mailing envelope. There was nothing in the box but the watch band - no padding material at all.

 

[supton]

This one puzzles me - not sure why it didn't go out in a padded mailing envelope. There was nothing in the box but the watch band - no padding material at all.
View attachment 220443

Wonder if it was a) person did not care, or b) person didn't have enough time to care. Throw into a box and onto the next package to box. Have to admit, a watch band is not likely to be damaged in shipping: perhaps that person saves their time on boxes like this, and uses it on boxes that actually need extra attention on packing materials--just a wild guess on my part.

 

[fantastic]

Logical explanation would be to protect the filters. Sounds like you got a deal along with very good shipping protection. Chewy!

 

[AZjeff]

It makes no sense but if you knew what mega-shippers like Chewy, Amazon etc actually pay for shipping and supplies it's a little less crazy.

 

[Thermo1223]

I doubt they even came from the same warehouse as the cat food to be honest. They likely never had any filters in stock. Like amazon sells stuff from 3rd party.

But a good deal is a good deal!

UPS has done this for a bit too. Consolidated Shipping or something like that, they even pitched the idea to my company until they saw our product and realized it was such a pain to store.

 

[racer12306]

Wonder if it was a) person did not care, or b) person didn't have enough time to care. Throw into a box and onto the next package to box. Have to admit, a watch band is not likely to be damaged in shipping: perhaps that person saves their time on boxes like this, and uses it on boxes that actually need extra attention on packing materials--just a wild guess on my part.

I used to work with a guy that worked at an Amazon warehouse. My understanding is there's not much figuring out by the people doing the work. The computer tells them what to do.

If the computer said put it in a box that is 4x6x12, then they tape up and put it in a box that is 4x6x12.

The computer probably knows exact inventory of packaging and first choice could've been a mailer, but that line was out of mailers, so it subbed a box in.

 

[Urshurak776]

It makes no sense but if you knew what mega-shippers like Chewy, Amazon etc actually pay for shipping and supplies it's a little less crazy.

Agree. I work for a fortune 100 company, and our fedex accounts get used daily. I had to ship a capacitor reformer to California from the East Coast. It's in a gator case and weighs around 60 lbs.

Two day shipping.....$4

If it was me, personally, shipping that, I would need a second mortgage on the house....