packing books....revisited

I realize in rereading my post on book packing that my tone was unduly snarky and I apologize. I was, for better or worse, a bit upset that 3 of 4 packages arrived “minimally” packaged (and two did not included an invoice)…something that is fine for lots of reading copy books, but risky for more valuable volumes. I received a very nice response in which “Quillhill” asked if I would explain how I pack books (and managed not to call me a twit, which was nice).

We are *very* conscious about our “brand” and consider our packing important both as a means to protect a given book as securely as possible and as a way to project our “image” to a customer with whom we wish to leave the most favorable impression possible (in a medium where many dealers complain of a lack of customer loyalty, we are hovering around 70% return rate with client’s who come to us from the web initially, so the method appears to be working). I guess what I am saying is that a well packed book protects the book *and* effectively “shows” the client how seriously we care about their new book, our relationship with them and other, ethereal aspects of our approach to books and our customers. So here is how I pack various boxes:

We pack nearly all our books in new “U-Line” white presentation boxes (these are triple walled boxes with a crush rating above 275 pounds (and an average cost of about $0.45). We also use some scalable brown corrugated boxes for thicker tomes (especially early medical volumes) and/or orders of several books. We wrap each book in clean, new newsprint and then again in a sheet of black tissue paper sealed with a round sticker with our sphinx logo. The book is then wrapped in small-cell bubble wrap in both directions (typically two squares in one direction and two-three in the other) and placed in a box that fits it closely. This is key…the box should be only slightly larger and then the voids filled with either a bit more bubble wrap or bunk paper. We then lay in our printed invoice and a half-sheet “About Us” descriptive statement. We were lucky to inherit a tape machine from my wife’s parents when they sold their company, so we use white paper tape to seal the package. It is not quite the Tiffany’s “blue box,” but it does make a very nice, clean presentation.

We do use envelopes, on occasion, for overseas shipments. There is a very nice “Global Express” envelop that is the cheapest date in town to get a book to many countries if the book will fit. When we do use the envelopes, we wrap the book in about the same way as above but, and this is the critical issue, we sandwich the book between two bits of cardboard slightly larger than the book and taped tight…this protects the corners from getting bumped. I have sent a few dozen books overseas this way and have never had a book damaged (fingers crossed and knocking head against wood).

The only other packing trick/method I can think of is that when packing sets, we double box. We wrap the books in sets of two or three as above and pack them closely in a squarish box. The inner box is then placed in a larger box with about a 2-3 inches on all sides filled with “popcorn.” We also use this method when packing a very dense single volume or two volume set. It is *very* effective at protecting heavy masses from shifting and damaging their corners and/or slipcases.

If we were shipping books under $20 or so, I think wrapping them in paper and then a padded envelop would probably be just fine. When shipping books over $75, however, it just seems too risky not to pack them as safely as possible. The cost, both in time and materials, is very minor against the risk of damage and/or return. Personally, I really like packing books…it is strangely fun…very much like wrapping holiday gifts.