[SRR]

Originally Posted by Shiny

You got good advice on the drop risk. There are "industry-accepted" drop event assumptions that spell out probability of drop per height. 36" is probably a 1 in 100 probability for low-weight cartons.

Imagine what a box goes through between you and the destination. I recall the "typical" number of drop and/or impact events for any single box is about 12. So if it gets mildly hammered a few times and the box is weakened, a drop from even a low height can spell the end.

A commercial company will design and test packaging to make sure it survives drops. I don't do that myself, and most of us here probably don't either. So my guess is part of the high cost of packaging is because:

1. people don't package their product well
2. the damage rate is high, which means the claim rate is high
3. we all pay for it

UPS, Fedex, UPS, etc. can't know if a customer's packaging is adequate or not. If a 3rd party packages your item, they are likely to do a better job than most individuals.

I just try to overpackage stuff and it sounds like you do too. Most on here are likely to do the same. And in my own distorted brain, it's ALWAYS the other people causing my problems!

I have also started doing unboxing videos so if there is a problem they can clearly see it was damaged during shipment. When I was selling on ebay I over packaged as well and only had one thing damaged in shipment on a cylinder head rocker stud so I gave the guy a partial refund to cover the repair and he was happy.