Shipping Prep for Holiday Season

When this time of year comes around, excitement abounds and a certain hustle and bustle becomes ever present in the atmosphere. Perhaps it’s because a slew of holidays are crammed into a 2 month period. Or maybe it’s because everyone is out driving, visiting family.

But more often than either of those is because of the gift giving season our society has created. Without a doubt, our obsession with buying stuff around the holidays has caused the 4th quarter of the year to always be highest in sales for retail stores, and it certainly shows if you ever visit your local mall.

Something a lot of people fail to consider during the holidays is shipping times. Whether you go through big shipping companies or federal services, this time of year is when shipping can get backed up because of the absolute volume of everything being sent for the holidays. But when you think about it, it adds up. Even you will be sending your family holiday card, mailing off gifts to distant relatives, or sending things in for return to online companies who got your order wrong.

Whatever the case happens to be, it’s undoubtedly the case that you’ll be sending cardboard boxes through the mail. Touch up on these tips to stay ahead of the busy shipping season.

Take the first step now.

It can seem like the winter holidays are still a ways off, but with increased shipping times and limited items on shelves, you’re at a much better advantage doing this now instead of in early December. So make sure to plan ahead and don’t dawdle. Rather than do your shopping in December, we suggest you get everything ready in November. That way, you can ship it out by the beginning of December or earlier. You’ll thank yourself once you know it’s arrived safely by the time you were shooting for.

Keep in mind your box’s size when shipping.

If your items don’t require larger cardboard boxes, then don’t get larger boxes. It’s that simple. The bigger they are, the more they’ll cost. Now, you’ll definitely want to leave a few inches on each side of the item in order to pack material around it for safety and keeping your contents in tact, but you don’t want a box with massive amounts of space remaining. It’s better to minimize your shipping cost by keeping the box’s size to a bare minimum. That’s cost efficiency at its finest.