Author: Ralph Winans

Being a new year and a lot of different changes that have taken place has taught me some crazy lessons.  The new world the United States has become is pretty much authoritarianism.  This means that you have to deal with what you have because what you have now belongs to the state. This year I have taken more notice of certain aspects of life.  The 2020 Covid 19 pandemic has changed the way I work and live on a daily basis.  So much so that I now live as a hermit has in teh past and am forced by law to do it.  In fact, it would be safe to say I am actually on house arrest due to the stay at home orders of my state. What this has done is to change the way I receive and give products and services not only for work but for my personal life.  This means that instead of being able to shop and visit local stores, I am instead of being forced to purchase items online.  This has indeed been convenient but I have noticed that I have been unable to eliminate all of the shipping supplies that have been used to send me all these items I have requested.  This excess of cardboard sitting in my house has me truly acknowledge the amount of waste our country is creating due to the stay at home orders and in general. 

Looking around my home I see a bit of an environmental shame.  It hurts to see so much cardboard lying around.  There is literally a pile of cardboard boxes and random shipping supplies taking up space in my garage right now.  This amount of tape and paper and a random assortment of bubble wraps have been too much for me to dispose of to keep up with the amount of trash I am allowed to eliminate on a weekly basis.  Currently, there is no way for me to recycle these items through my local trash company and I am feeling absolutely terrible about all this extra waste. But the state has forced me to do this and the world suffers for their rules.  

Now, I have started to notice the amount of space that has been unnecessarily provided in the boxes I have received.  Just last week I ordered a weed wacker to help control the plants growing on my property.  My yard has been overrun with lots of different plant life and I needed a better way than hand pulling all the weeds to keep up with their growth.  So I ordered an item on amazon.  The box that is was shipped in was 5 times the size of the item.  It was incredibly wide and longer than it needed to be.  The main issue was that my weed wacker was actually in a box that was perfectly shippable on its own.

The use of the extra box provided by amazon was not necessary for any way and now my garage has a 5-foot long box that is 3 feet wide.  The dimensions are so much larger than it actually needed to be.  I would like to put out a request that boxes be shipped in the appropriate way from here on out.  Try to be wise with your ordering and packaging if you work in that industry. 

Things are not the same as they were in 2019 or even 2020.  The world is changing and I have seen more small companies arise than ever before.  The eCommerce world is thriving and the fact is that this is the perfect time to get in on it.  But what do you do if you are new to it and simply don’t have the capital to jump in?  Well, you find any and every way to save money to allow yourself to thrive.  The environment is changing and not just the sky.  The United States Economy is going through massive changes due to the current pandemic.  Covid-19 has shut down many companies or changed the way they do business.  Now multiple retailers are having to move from a brick and mortar style of business to e-commerce overnight.  What has also changed is that now most shopping is being done online and people are now demanding these products to be delivered to their homes.  

But don’t give up hope just because things are getting different.  In some cases, this is very difficult for retailers because they offer fragile products or items that must be shipped very carefully.  So getting proper shipping supplies is paramount to their new e-commerce business.  So what are some ways they can cut down on costs of shipping supplies and get the boxes and tools you need? You can still be small and compete with the big guys as long as you are being smart and offering good stuff. 

Searching through the internet I have found that there are some places to cut down on costs of boxes.  Some places offer discounts for buying bulk items and some are giving away samples. I would highly suggest getting sample items to simply size out what you will be needing in the future.  If your entire company is now shipping, you need to measure out the size of the box and the weight it will need to hold.  You will also need to know what type of filling work best with the items you are now shipping. 

Make sure to check at stamps.com USPS actually does have some free items available for certain types of shipping. Most of it is going to be around the idea of shipping packages, but it sure could help if it fits the sizes you need.  “The USPS will keep you well-stocked with boxes, stickers, forms, and more for free. These pre-printed envelopes, mailers, and boxes can be used to send items through Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express, and they’re eco-friendly”. These items can actually be ordered directly online or you can pick them up at local post offices.  I would suggest during these times with Covid-19 all around that you should order them online and with the extra days in between shipping they may be safer all around. 

If you find that those do not work for you then I would suggest going to your major packing company and asking for some samples.  From here you can start ordering the ones that work in large quantities.  This can help cut down on costs. But make sure you are going to use that many boxes and don’t go overboard on ordering just in case you go back to more brick and motor style stores sooner rather than later. Be safe, and thrive in 2021. 

Now that 2021 has started I am able to look back and see that all of this has not been for anything.  We are now a socialist society and I am learning to have to deal with it.  I have found that the 2020 Covid 19 pandemic has given me lots of extra time around the house. Being forcibly trapped at home due to basically marshal law has taught me to be scrappy. Cutting out travel time by being forced to work at home has given me a few hours a day to add to my life.  This extra time has been put to good use.  Well, at least a few days a week I am productive with it.  So this year I have been lucky enough to have the time to paint my house.  I also know that I hate painting and certainly hate painting houses.  Now on the inside, it would have been a fairly simple task, but we are actually painting the exterior of the home.  This has caused lots of challenges and luckily I have used all the extra cardboard boxes and shipping supplies from amazon and used them to help with the task. So how have I used them in the past month?  Well, I used them to be my trash collectors and also my paint collectors.

This has not been the easiest of tasks, but you use what you have when you have less.  The first thing I found from the painting is that shipping supplies are very useful. I have been able to take cardboard boxes and tape to a new level.  The first and most useful thing I found is that when I open up paint containers paint always seems to either splatter or get dripped from the can or container when they get put down.  So, I first cut them open to make a cover for the ground.  By cutting open a large box and spreading it on the ground it covered enough space for me to open the paint can and not have paint splatter out.  After I was done pouring the paint I was able to then set it on the cardboard and not have any stains on the ground.  It was a great help from making me clean up my garage from paint splatters and also outside.  Nothing it worse than paint splatters going all over the yard from the paint cans.  

But don’t just use them for one thing.  Be crazy and find more things, like another area I was able to use the boxes was as a liner.  I was able to cut a bunch of lots of small boxes that were made of heavier cardboard.  These pieces I then used as a level liner for specific areas. I found the areas around my windows were really difficult to paint straight.  So taking the box and using a paintbrush directly over it I was able to get perfect lines on the windows.  It was a great help and saved me lots of money vs going out and buying a specific one. 

Never stop being wise with the items you have.  You may not be able to purchase them again, or be able to spend money frivilously.  So use the boxes that are lying around for the most things that you can.