Insane! I ordered a book from Amazon, and it was cushioned between 4 layers of bubble wrap. Can't wait to open up the GPS device I bought from Best Buy, too. It's sealed for life in one of those plastic packages that is 50 times the size of the product.

You know, I used to get DVDs from Amazon in those handy little DVD-shaped boxes. But when my brother picked 2 off my Christmas list, they shipped them in a manila envelope! I was surprised. Not offended, it wasn't really unnecessary packaging, but sometimes I wonder how they run their shipping facilities...

Be thankful that box wasn't filled with packing peanuts! Yes, I'm looking at you Newegg... ;-)

@admiral_stabbin: Newegg's packing peanuts are the bane of my existence.

I never complain about that issue. Free boxes and packing paper for sending stuff back out to ebay buyers.

@Canino:

Or RMA?

Rule of thumb: if the item is so small that you can hide it in the lower fold of the box, the box is TOO BIG.

That said, I have to play devil's advocate in that it's more likely that the FedEx guy would actually ring the doorbell for that package instead of leaving it in the mailbox for all to covet and remove. I bought EndWar from Amazon and that's what happened with the small-enough box.

Damned if you do - damned if you don't.

While a padded envelope would probably have been most appropriate, it might be worth noting that it is often cheapest to simply buy large quantities of boxes in several select sizes, and in doing so, adopt a policy of shipping items in the smallest boxes available, even if that box is far larger than would seem reasonable for the item. I'm not shocked or surprised at all. Especially if they do bulk shipping through someone like UPS or fedex.

Step one... cut a hole in the box...

Perhaps they are overpacking to keep the item safe. I had a package arrive from Amazon, it was stuff that a friend sent to me from Amazon so I can ship it back to him the UK since its not available over here. Anyways the box was double-packed, there was a smaller box inside of a larger box. I was really glad they did this however because the outer box looked like it had a knife go through it when it arrived and was torn up in a couple spots (thank UPS for that), and lo and behold it did not enter the second box. The packaging here saved our items, and if this would have happened to the smaller box inside I would probably be making a damaged item claim.

i have ordered electronics and delicate items from dealextreme a few times now and since they ship partial orders when they are ready i have received a total of 6 shipments in the last year.
all in nothing more than padded envelopes with no internal cushioning aside from the original packaging of the items. some of them delicate electronics.
from hong kong. free shipping from them takes up to a month sometimes so those things are just hanging around in freight containers or whatever.
guess what? nothing has yet been damaged in shipping.
but considering the rates of package damage failure for fedex and ups, i'm not surprised that US retailers feel the need to overprotect their shipments.

@admiral_stabbin: oooooh you newegg... you and your pesky peanuts!!! Although today, I received my recent newegg goodness with crumpled up kraft paper, much like in this video.

Gwyneth Paltrow's head?

My wife ordered three bed sheets from Amazon, shipped by Target (ugh), and each one was shipped individually.

@PDX909:

YOU WIN!

This is border line. There is a min size for a box for something like this (you have to have the room for the packing list (on the side on this video and the fedex/UPS labels. The boxes need to stack so a think box with the label on one side and the packing list on other will not work (Its to puffy). If the shipper did ALOT of this kind of sale I whould say use a thinner box and put packing list inside but unless they do this ALOT its not practical.

Sweet! 16 GB SD card AND packing materials?

I had to RMA some memory I bought recently. I shipped via UPS (12/22/2008), but packaged it myself in a box that was comparable to the size of the items. I declared the value at $100. The clerk honored that, but informed me that the general rule of thumb for UPS shipping and insurance is 2" of box clearance + adequate packing material.

Obviously, some of these over pack issues are extreme, but may be what companies are using to comply with what is needed for damage coverage.

In regards to newegg shipping in oversized packaging, the above mentioned memory was shipped eggsaver (free) which meant DHL -> USPS -> me .. it was shipped in a padded envelope (RMA was not a damage related issue, just a bad piece of memory).

Even when the memory was returned from the manufacturer, it was sent via USPS priority in a box that was only slightly larger than the retail packging the memory was in.

This all leads me to believe that the oversized packages are more related to the actual shipping company used rather then the person shipping the items ..

Happy New Year!!!

Honestly, the packaging the SD card is sold in is too much as it is.

@admiral_stabbin:

Newegg ships this sort of stuff in an envelope.

Is it Gwyneth Paltrow's head?

A half dead, half living cat? A universe where i'm married to a one eyed mutant? Andy Samberg's dick?

I don't know if people think that these shippers are actually doing this purposefully, but I've worked in a shipping warehouse, and here's how it actually goes down:

1. Down the line, someone pulls the label off of its backing and puts it on the box that the label tells her to.

2. I get the box, scan the bar code, and my equipment tells me to put an SD card in it. Event though I think this is funny, I'm graded on how fast I work, so I just throw the card in and push it down the line.

3. At the end of the line, someone working the filler stuffs it full of paper and tapes the box shut.

Bottom line, no one in the warehouse cares enough to do anything about this. The people who can fix it are the people who are putting data into computers upstairs, and those people are never going to know about this, since the warehouse people won't tell them. If you really care about this issue, send the shipped an email, hope that it gets to the right place. They probably don't know that this happened/is happening, so tell them.

@coren:

I'd be comfortable sticking an SD card in a plain unpadded envelope.

Does this person shoot a video opening every package they get in the mail?

@EdnaLegume: My recent newegg purchase came with packing paper, too.

@catastrophegirl: Don't order the keychain LED lights then; out of a 10-pack, one or more always arrives with a dead battery because they press against each other in shipping.

@nicemarmot617: If you look at your invoice, there is a code in the bottom right hand corner. It lists the box that the computer chooses for the order. The guys in the warehouse just do what the invoice tells them.

William Shatners head?

@admiral_stabbin: For the type of equipment I buy from NewEgg, I EXPECT it to be well-packed, unable to move or shift, ensconced immobile in its armor of peanuts. The last thing I want to hear when receive my latest terabyte drive is something clunking around inside the box, and craft paper isn't going to stop that.

@outsdr:

For a hard drive, especially an OEM drive, sure. But I've had mice, wireless cards, and other not-exactly fragile stuff packed in peanuts by Newegg.

Unlike lots of people, I don't care about the environmental impact. I hate them because my cat keeps trying to eat them.

@FuryOfFirestorm:

I wish I was married to a one-eyed mutant. Leela is hot!

@TangDrinker: He is preparing himself for Cloverfield 2, and keeps one running all the time.

@speedwell: ah, thanks. i haven'[t ordered anything that needed batteries so far.

@madanthony: *Sigh* Cats and packing peanuts... How do they even know they're in the house? They always FIND THEM.

Annoying.

I hate packing peanuts.

@admiral_stabbin:
Sometimes I'll order from Newegg solely for the purpose of refilling my empty packing peanut coffers.

@TangDrinker:
You haven't heard of the practice of 'unboxing'?
I loathe it... It is soooo annoying. Do you really need to videotape yourself unboxing something? What is the purpose so you can go back and watch yourself unbox it again???

-OR-

He knew it was coming and knew the size of the box was really dumb compared to the product size.

WTmF?@RTFA_SteveDave:

WTmF?

@PDX909: Hahahaha! Too funny!

@Kimaroo: Aggghhh yes. I don't know what it is with certain publishing houses, but Feldheim and Eichler's both ship books in huge boxes filled with packing peanuts. Eichler's also uses the tape that has string integrated into it and requires an X-acto knife to remove. And my cats love the packing peanuts. LOVE them. And they're stupid enough to eat the things, so we have to be very careful.

They also ripped open one of my squishy Mogu pillows a few months ago. You have no idea what a mess those polystyrene beads make. Nightmare. They stick to everything, get in the cats' fur, between the pages of books, ground into the carpet...horrible.

@dangermike:

YEP.

And since any box smaller than 3 cubic feet in volume will have a billable weight equal to the actual weight AND the fact that UPS/FedEx have a 1 lb mininum billable weight there will be absolutely zip incentive for the vendor to change their shipping practices.

@Canino: exactly. or if you truly have no need for it, it'll fit in a recycling bin just fine.

it may be wasteful by killing a tree, but i bet at least 15 canadians remain gainfully employed by our liberal use of oversized paper packaging. at least they're starting to reneg on the use of those wrist-slitting blister packs.

@RTFA_SteveDave:that was pretty funny. Shatner has more lives than an alley cat.

@RTFA_SteveDave: Oh damn it's another one of the annoying William Shatner clones.

@outsdr:
Most of the stuff I buy from the egg comes in a box of packing peanuts. Of course, the item is resting on the bottom of the box with no peanuts between it and the box...

I was always baffled by Amazon's over-packing (got something similar to this in October) until I ordered a DVD box set and a couple of kids' books for Xmas gifts. For once, Amazon failed to use the shrink-wrap packaging and air pillows I usually get and UPS somehow crushed a corner of the box. Result: all three items were damaged and I had to get a new shipment. If they had been packed as usual, likely they would have been fine. So, I no longer complain about excess packaging.

@Oakie Pokie:

If we don't use paper products, the pulpwood producers don't grow as many trees.

There are other aspects of the paper-goods business that produce some nasty pollution, but, fortunately, simple pulpwood production actually does a reasonable job with sustainability.

I just bought a new usb flash drive from newegg. The container itself was about 4 inches x 4 inches clamshell packaging.

It arrived in a LEGAL SIZED manila envelope. 11x17"

@admiral_stabbin: One time they sent me a gigantic package filled with peanuts. It was big enough to fit 10 motherboard boxes. What was in it? A PSU and memory. Of course newegg also ships their hard drives in one layer of bubble wrap loose in a huge box of peanuts with other stuff it could knock into... my jaw dropped at that one. 1 layer of bubble wrap. Did they run out of hard drive clamshells?

@admiral_stabbin: Anyone know if packing peanuts are still terrible for the environment in terms of off gassing? Or is it just the waste of plastic these days?

PErsonally, I'm a fan of companies that use leftover, non-confidential waste paper or scredding. It's a smart way to reuse paper that doesn't involve a landfill or big chemical plant to stitch it together in a crappier piece of paper.