Some printers will shrink wrap your purchased forms in bundles of one hundred or more or less. They will ship your envelopes in beautiful sturdy boxes of five hundred envelopes per box and then place the boxes in sturdy shipping containers. Other printers will ship the forms in a box without shrink wrapping them and use a much less expensive rather flimsy box for the envelopes. Unfortunately the buyer of the printed material ends up paying for the extra packaging even if he doesn’t need it.

Electronic components are often wrapped in paper or plastic and then placed in display boxes with beautiful colored graphics. Other companies dump their items in huge pallet boxes without any individual piece wrapping whatsoever. The buyer may or may not find the display boxes advantageous. In fact, if the components are going to be used in production, removing them from the display box requires extra labor and results in extra unnecessary cost. One company importing small non-fragile parts that were individually wrapped and individually boxed saved $27,000 per year in labor by having the supplier simply pack the total shipment in pallet boxes without any individual wrapping. Additional savings were obtained by a reduction in price from the supplier because of the supplier’s cost reduction.

Paint or other coatings may be purchased in gallon or five gallon containers or fifty-five gallon drums. Each size container has its advantages and disadvantages and purchasing an incorrect size represents an added cost that is unnecessary. It is up to the buyer to buy the most appropriate size for the job.