Hi all! I'm going to send out my first mail trade Monday & have a lot of goodies that I want to send. So far my game plan is to tape the caps, wrap each bottle thoroughly with bubble wrap, throw that in a ziplock bag, then place them each in individual slots that i segmented with cardboard. Does this sound safe & secure enough or should I take extra precautions? Like: 1) wrap the whole inside in a trash bag (so no possible leaks) 2) individually put seran wrap around bottle tops 3) throw beans in as a noisemaker? (still unsure of this as they may think the package is broken, open it, & send it back) No idea if I'm overkilling it but I'd rather be safe than sorry & have my fellow BA receive the goodies. Any & all help would be greatly appreciated, cheers!
2 and 3 are complete overkill. Seran wrap won't help seal a cap, at best it will contain the spill a bit. There are probably 10,000 liquids that are perfectly fine to ship with Fedex, so I've never understood hiding the noise. 1 is a fine safety precaution, but pack like you won't need it.
Since you're in the LA area, hit up a Bevmo and grab a Styrofoam shipper...saves the hassle of bubble wrapping and over packing...haven't had a problem so far... Cheers!
Yeah I don't wna draw attention so I'll prob leave out the noisemakers, though Mac n cheese was a darn good idea! I'm using bubble wrap & air pockets saved from packages I got from work because it's cheaper and kind of like recycling lol You guys are all giving very helpful tips, thank you! I'll be sure to pack my bottles well
I always throw in a box. It's an amusing extra, and it covers up any sounds. After you do a few trades, you'll find that you will have bubble wrap sections to spare. When I wrap my bottles, I try to use a minimal amount of tape. That way, the wrap I send out can be re-used as well.
Try and stand bottles upright if possible so you don't get the swoosh-swoosh sound of liquid back and forth.
In my humble opinion, this will only help when one initially drops off the box. When a box is in transit, it gets tossed around, turned on it's side and it's top, and gets spun all around. When I get a box, it's 'upright' maybe 20% of the time.
My wife packs all my trades and she puts a few pieces of rice or mac and cheese inside. just enough to cover any sloshing. honestly it isn't really needed, but if that is how she wants to pack them then that is fine with me. Placing the bottles upright helps cover the liquid sloshing sound at the drop off, but nothing past that.
I always double box, no problems yet. A 12-bottle cardboard box for bombers fits well enough inside a Small Box from U-Haul, plenty of packing stuff around the edges. So far, so good
Not sure if I can double box but the cardboard is very sturdy, esp with the slot inserts. The bottles will be originally places in the upright position but I do expect it to have a nice tumble with Fedex. I might try to avoid tape & use rubber bands to secure my bubble wraps / air cushions so that the package receiver can reuse them for any other trades.
Thats what I was trying to get across. Once it gets past the counter people I'm not as worried about liquid sound being detected.
