When to use what: Mailing Bags or Cardboard Boxes?
, by Box Depot, 4 min reading time
When should you use Poly Mailing Bags and when should you use cardboard boxes? It all comes down to what you're sending and where! We'll take a look at the advantages of each ... and when they can also work well together!
When should you use Poly Mailing Bags and when should you use cardboard boxes? It all comes down to what you're sending and where!
We'll take a look at the advantages of each ... and when they can also work well together!
When is it best to use Poly Mailing Bags and when to use cardboard boxes?
As more and more people are looking to send goods through the post or courier, what to pack things in is becoming more and more important.
The first question to ask yourself is what is being sent and where is it being sent.
Items that are relatively flat and likely to go through a letter box are perfectly suitable for shallow postal boxes.
Cardboard boxes and postal boxes offer excellent protection from impact, dust, dirt and some ambient moisture. They can also be padded out with other packaging materials such as bubble wrap.
Poly Mailing Bags, on the other hand, are ideally suited for soft, lightweight, non-fragile items, particularly clothing and apparel. They also have the added advantage of being more waterproof than cardboard boxes.
So Postal/Cardboard boxes are ideal for more delicate and fragile items that need impact protection. And Poly Mailing Bags are ideal for moisture protection ... so maybe the ideal mailing solution for fragile items is to use both?
The Advantages of Poly Mailing Bags
Poly Mailing Bags, being made of plastic, are by definition waterproof, so can protect against moisture. Their tough polythene construction means they're burst-resistant and they have tamper-proof peel+seal openings, so they also offer a good degree of security. They will often have a grey or black opaque inner which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to identify the contents once sealed which provides extra security.
Being flexible, they are ideal for soft items such as homewares or apparel and are increasingly becoming a staple of online fashion businesses as their toughness makes them suitable for being reused for returns. There are also many sizes of Poly Mailing Bags available which means that for more fragile items, such as jewellery, you can wrap your item in bubble wrap and still find a Poly Mailing Bag that will accommodate it.
These days, everybody loves sustainability. So you may be questioning the eco-friendly credentials of Mailing Bags that are made of plastic. Advances in manufacturing techniques means that these days you can find Poly Mailing Bags that are not only made from recycled plastic, but are also recyclable. There is however, one important exception - you will never ever find a coloured recyclable Poly Mailing Bag ... the act of adding colour or pigments renders it unrecyclable. You may notice that Box Depot has a limited range of coloured Mailing Bags. Once they're gone, they're gone! If you'd like to buy a large quantity, please contact us for a deal!
Box Depot does have a full range of Grey Mailing Bags that are made with a minimum of 25% post consumer waste and are 100% oxo-biodegradable (biodegradable in conjunction with oxidation) so are also 100% recyclable. And this information is printed on each mailing bag for consumer convenience.
The Advantages of Cardboard Boxes
Cardboard boxes offer a range of benefits too. Boxes are ideal for protecting fragile objects, since the thick card from which they are constructed offers excellent impact protection.
Cardboard boxes also come in a range of sizes and shapes to suit almost all types of good, and can often allow leeway for adding extra packaging material around the goods, and within the box to give whatever is inside some added protection.
If you're having difficulty deciding on what type of packaging to use, why not call in to Box Depot to view our range of packaging?
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