can't see the pic. anyone else?

Maybe the spoons have a history of fighting with each other and needed to be separated.

there we go. wow what a waste.

That is all the leftover packaging that Amazon did NOT use when shipping hard drives.

i think they need to get together with amazon's shipping department.

They could have easily shipped in a bubble envelope. Labeled fragile if necessary, but most likely not for wooden spoons.

@ManicPanic: dang you beat me to the amazon joke!!!!!

Whoops, didn't see that last line of the post--I swear I am not poaching ideas!!!!

I've seen worse. I got a box from Office Depot, probably about the size of check in bag, which was full of packing material, a box of pens, and a pair of scissors. I thought the driver would just drop it off in a bag.

how many rainforests does it take to ship a spoon? --about 5.

@ManicPanic: wow i'm guilty of that as well.

wow. That's a bit obnoxious.

I hope she didn't pay too much shipping (she probably did.)

Separate shipments is probably because they ship it out as it becomes available. But yeah... what a waste of paper... and money.

We had a Crate and Barrel registry for our wedding, and I can confirm that this is how they package pretty much everything. It made no sense at all. Sometimes we'd get boxes *full* of stuff, other times we'd get boxes like the one described above with the sppon.

i'm just assuming, but did these spoons cost an arm, or just a leg?

Hmm, sounds like a place I want to order from when ordering something fragile.

If you are ordering wooden spoons online instead of getting them on your next trip to the store, how concerned are you with efficiency and/or use of resources, really?

Crate and Barrel is so over-priced, they get to use some of that profit margin for over-packing.

Heh. Reminds me of an old company I worked for that bought a ton of computer hardware from Sun. The servers showed up missing the all important power cables, so we contacted Sun to let them know. About a week later we get a box from Sun that's about 3 feet square. Inside the box are about 20 or so smaller boxes about 2x10x10. These boxes fit perfectly in the larger box, and each one was immaculately taped shut. Inside each of these 20 or so small boxes? One power cord.

The items probably came from two different shipment warehouses/locations. One location had the big spoon (its just a spoon) and the other location had the other items. Shipping from each location was then synchronized to arrive at the same time. Newegg did this on my last large order. The shipment consisted of 4 boxes; one shipping from their TN location, 3 from two different CA locations. All four arrived the same day. However, it was obvious that had the items all been in the same location, they could have been sent in the same small box, thus saving packing materials.

They may have shipped from different warehouses. Also being the holiday rush, they may have run out of smaller boxes

Oh, you're all grinches. Don't you know conspicuous consumption = Christmas?

@heinzs: Yeah, I mean, they're wooden spoons. Even if there's not a Crate and Barrel near you are these really the sort of things you need to mail order? Although that lonely spoon in that big box IS kinda funny.

That had to be a joke made by one of the employees.

Try Spatula City next time.

Typically warehouse management systems will pick a box size based on the size of the item. To economize how many boxes you end up having in inventory, it's common for a shipping company to choose a few very common sizes that will handle 95% of all shipments without wasting too much packing material (it's not like a company wants to ship air and packing material to you, it costs a ton of money to do it). Every so often you get oddly sized product, like spoons or desk calendars that are longer than your smaller boxes, but don't take up much cubic space. A warehouse would be forced to ship in the bigger box because the item literally won't fit in the next size smaller.

Not excusing the problem, just explaining why it occurs. It is a big thorn in the side of companies that take shipping seriously. Until something is created that makes custom sized boxes to order in an economical manner is invented, you can expect to have this happen.

if they arent sending you your purchase in a crate- or barrel-sized package, then whats the point?

I agree that it is very wasteful on C&B's part to pack these items as if they were Faberge eggs.

I really can't help myself from pointing out, though, that it's not exactly carbon-footprint friendly either to request shipping of a rubber spatula and wooden spoons. So a wag of the finger to all parties involved.

Also maybe the person who packed it read the order wrong and missed one spoon, then instead of reopening the package placed a spoon in another box.

who orders big wooden spoons anyways... wouldn't you rather have a nice lead tainted spoon from China(wal)Mart.

Thats what you get for ordering chinese fighting spoons. Ours keep us up all night banging into the sides of their cabinets trying to attack each other.

Seriously, cut 'em some slack. It's not indicative of the company as a whole, I assure you. More likely the result of the dregs of society these places hire around holiday time to bodies in place to fill order. Not that that makes it any better, I'm just sayin'...

While it's possible they may have been shipped separately, the company should certainly have boxes smaller than that for shipping something like a single spoon. (Unless they had run out of the smaller boxes as someone had suggested, but I doubt it.)

@internal:

C&B is actually not all that over-priced when compared with other aspirational/high-end stores. On the whole, I've found their stuff to be of very high quality while being reasonably priced as well..

Xerox is terrible about this sort of thing. Apparently they only have 1 size box for shipping, and it's for the biggest part they have. So when the tech orders a new cleaning web (comes in a triangle-shaped box about the size of a drafting ruler) it arrives in a 18x24x30 box. Good thing that most of the parts are pretty robust, since they don't even put the air bubbles in there, or peanuts or anything. Just a part in a huge box.

I used to get this all the time in retail. The reason is, they have a computer program that they plug the dimensions of their products into, and it converts those to an approximation of the smallest 3-dimensional rectangular box it would fit in, and then figures out how many of those imaginary boxes will fit in one of several standard-size shipping cartons they have, by volume. If the volume of 5 imaginary item-boxes exceeds the available space + estimated volume of packing materials, you get two cartons, nevermind that those boxes don't really exist.
Wow, just read that, and damn is it boring. The upshot is that I used to complain to The North Face (wholesale) about this very problem, they were supposed to be so eco-friendly, but I'd get a 28x20x12 carton with one shoebox in it, and 10 of those in a 60-75 shoe order. Drove me nuts, and I demanded an explanation. That's what I got.

Well until the value of the packaging is made known, with a return cash value modeled on returnable bottles/cans nothing will change, as soon as that becomes the new lawful mandated norm, everything will change, duh.

Put a refundable $$ value on the "hard to recycle" things like monitors, chips, fluids etc and a simple way to return the packaging and things will seek their own solutions.

@heinzs:
"If you are ordering wooden spoons online instead of getting them on your next trip to the store, how concerned are you with efficiency and/or use of resources, really?"

I work 16 hours a day from home and have little time to do brick-and-mortar shopping. I don't own a car, use public transport and keep the thermostat at 65. I did *all* my Christmas shopping online and this was on someone's list. I agree though - ordering four utensils online seems silly.

@Daemon_of_Waffle: Nope, they both came from the same warehouse in Naperville, IL (to my place in Chicago) and arrived on the same day.

@heinzs: Well, we can compare the carbon footprints of a delivery truck making multiple stops vs a single consumer driving a private automobile.
/nerd

Same deal with a Kohl's order I made. The packaging wasn't excessive, but I ordered 4 items, and got 4 separate boxes shipped to me.

I had to order at least $75 to get free shipping, but when they ship it like that, they sure must waste a lot of money.

So let me get this straight... the consumerist complains when Amazon doesn't use enough packing, now they are complaining about a company using too much packaging.

For two years in HS I packed mail at C&B (bout 6 years ago).

During the holidays we run out of boxes daily, they actually get up to 4 trucks a week with product and another 2 for just packaging. And this was a house goods store.

The typically use biodegradable peanuts for packing, the bubble is overkill.

That looks like a #11 box if memory serves, they were likely out of 3s and 6s, or they were two short and wood does not bend.

My bad, that is biodegradable on the left. It's giami paper, I forget the spelling.

I think the bubble was added, they never used it before...maybe changed in 6 years.

What, does the Tick work at Crate & Barrel now?

"SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"

@ptkdude: I don't know why, but that made me laugh.

I had a similar thing from ebuyer.com when I ordered two £1.50 microphones, each in a slim plastic package. I received them in a 2' x 1' x 1' box which was totally filled with those air packets.

@Crumbles: You're absolutely right. You can either have too little packing or waaaaay too much. There is no middle ground. You have to vote for either Kodo or Kang. There is no other choice.

@b612markt:
"I work 16 hours a day from home and have little time to do brick-and-mortar shopping. I don't own a car, use public transport and keep the thermostat at 65. I did *all* my Christmas shopping online and this was on someone's list. I agree though - ordering four utensils online seems silly."

They sell this stuff at grocery stores. Surely you don't order delivery for every meal?

That's nothing. I once bought 100 sets of rack mount hardware kits (bolts & washers, basically). Could have fit every single piece of hardware in all 100 kits in a single coffee can.

They sent me a fracking pallet via a freight shipper. I wish I were joking. The pallet had 100 medium sized boxes strapped to it, each a little larger than a phone book. Each of those had some bubble wrap and a smaller box, about the size of a box of pens, in it. In the smaller boxes contained a couple dozen little bolts and such.

They did it again a year later when I ordered a bunch more.