If I am shipping 12oz cans is it OK to bag each individual can and then pack the cans inside a six pack holder for 12oz bottles? Just by eyeballing it I'm not sure if I will be able to fit bubble wrapped cans inside the bottle holder but I can add a bunch of bubble wrap around the six pack. Or am I better off wrapping each can in bubble wrap individually and just taping the wrapped cans together into a brick?
Well after actually experimenting myself it appears I can both bubble wrap the cans and put them in the six pack bottle holder! I think I got this one figured out but if anyone has any commentary I'd love to hear it but it seems I'll be good.
What are you shipping in? I don't see the point of using the 6 pack holder. I usually wrap each can individually and use a Ziploc bag. I try using rubber bands but tape is good. For 6 cans I would use med flat rate box. Cost is 13.95.
U could stand up the 12oz cans and lay the 16oz. Or lay them all the same way. I've seen people just wrap a 6 pack of 16oz cans and toss it in a med flat rate and send it off. I was shocked it made it in one piece. I learned early, especially if you don't any issues with shipping, to pack good and tight. Make sure there isn't any open space inside, but you may not have that problem with the amount of cans you are sending. But if there are open spaces use anything you can find to fill all spaces. Side note, I order almost all supplies from USPs.com. you can use those usps priority padded envelopes to wrap cans. You cut/rip open envelope and cut in half and you can wrap your cans. Also for regional shipping try using regional A or B boxes for shipping. For instance a B box is bigger than med flat rate and cost around$10 to ship. The A box is around$6-7 and can fit 2 small bottles/crowlers or 4 16oz cans.
It turns out it is impossible to use the 6-pack holders anyway because apparently USPS (or my local post office at least) stopped using 12x12x6 boxes and only has 24x12x3 boxes. The USPS website still shows the old size boxes but I guess I am going to use this new style to make life easy. Here is the new style box: and here is what I expected to be using
You can order all the packaging online from the USPS website. They send the boxes, envelopes, etc. to your house for free. If you want the boxes you were expecting to use.
I would caution against wrapping cans (even a little) and then putting 6 into a 6 pack bottle holder. Even if the goal is to set this standing up in a box. This was my goal some time ago when shipping a 30ish pound box. I did precisely this one night, then waited to finish packing until a couple days later when I had some free time. At that point I had one explode. Apparently the fit was too tight. So, just like wrapping a rubber band too tightly, it caused the IPA to explode. Could i have had bad luck? Sure. But this has taught me that it does not take all that much of a "right fit" on a can to cause issues.
Thanks for the info. I actually successfully got my first box out today and managed to get nearly 20 cans into that long and narrow box! I did have to tape around the entire box because the box ended up being heavy. Nothing seemed too tight but I double bagged all the beers so even if one does break, which I doubt, I can't imagine there being any leakage. I guess I'll know in 2 days.
Damm son, 20 cans?!! Was it all 12oz? You seemed to got it down quick. I may have to check out this longer box and let us know how the package arrived. Good luck.
Two 16oz and the rest were all 12oz. The one thing I did learn is you shouldn't bubble wrap cold cans because the condensation gets all over the bubble wrap! I ended up having to unwrap a bunch of cans and dry them off and let they warm up a bit and repack them because I wanted everything nice and dry. If you were shipping out only pint cans I'm guessing you could get ~14 wrapped up and bagged in there fairly easily. Also for whatever reason the package didn't sound nearly as much like beer as I thought it would after reading other peoples posts about trying to cover the noise. It only sounded like liquid sloshing if you put your ear right next to it and shook it a bit. The post office people didn't ask any questions at all.
Ok I was able to get 16 16oz can's in 1 Large Flat Rate box. I could get 2 rows of 4 on the bottom and 2 rows of 4 on the top. I couldn't get all 4 beers in 1 zip lock so I basically zipped 3 and 1 for each row after wrapping each can in newspaper. Then I put a thin layer of tiny bubble wrap between the layers and a thick layer of wrap on top. Because the beer was bagged I basically left a little air inside each bag that also seemed to act as a pillow for the cans. It was pretty tight after closing, but there was zero movement and I couldn't hear anything. I think I'm going to do it this way for bigger trades from now on.
