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UPS Store: "Moving" versus "Shipping" boxes

Farmer

Farmer

Diamond Member
I'm moving to a different city and I can't drive.

I figured the cheapest way was to send 3 or 4 boxes of books and kitchen supplies via UPS Ground.

I went to a UPS store to buy some boxes. They sell "Moving" boxes and "Shipping" boxes, with the shipping boxes around 3 times the cost (a $3 moving box would be a $9 shipping box). The salesperson said the shipping boxes are sturdier, and claims the moving boxes won't hold up to shipping. I felt the boxes and there doesn't really seem to be a difference.

Does anyone know what the hell the difference is and if I would need to buy a more expensive box?
 
I am interested in seeing if someone has an answer here, I thought boxes were boxes.

Perhaps the shipping boxes can handle higher weight loads stacked on top of it? Since a box might be 4 or 5 deep under others? I would say it is a load of crap, and the boxes are the same and the UPS store is trying to rip you off. ( i hate my local UPS store, everything there is 5 times as expensive to do there).

See if you can tear off one layer of paper on each box, so you can see how the insides are made. I know the honeycomb insides are much more expensive then the corrugated boxes, but I receive items in corrugated cardboard all the time.
 
Yeah so the salesperson said something about the moving boxes being single wall and the shipping boxes being double wall. Even though the samples they had outside were all single wall. I was standing there thinking, what the flux.

Anyway, all the Amazon boxes I've ever gotten were single walled, sooo, I really don't know.
 
Go to Walmart. I bought some large cardboard boxes for shipping for like 86 cents apiece IIRC. UPS had no problems accepting them. Double tape and bubble wrap will matter far more than whether or not the box is single or double walled.
 
If you go to a local grocery store or walmart and ask for their old boxes at night when they are doing inventory and whatnot most places don't mind giving you as many boxes as you need. I remember going in high school and getting 2 truck loads full.
 
Boxes come in all sorts of wall and crush strengths. Boxes are definitely not boxes. However, you should easily be able to tell the difference either by feel or by reading the label on the box. There's normally a label that tells you how strong the box is.
 
Having moved many, many times I have found the Uhaul boxes to be pretty much the sturdiest of any out there for the cost. Most of mine have lasted through half a dozen moves. They are also pretty damn cheap all things considered.
 
Many moving companies will have leftovers.

There contracts state that they will pickup after a move is finished. They can not resell the boxes as new and are happy to hand out 3-4 to a starving college student. Just play the part. Make a couple of phone calls to the moving/storage lines in your area.
 
EagleKeeper said:
Many moving companies will have leftovers.

There contracts state that they will pickup after a move is finished. They can not resell the boxes as new and are happy to hand out 3-4 to a starving college student. Just play the part. Make a couple of phone calls to the moving/storage lines in your area.
Click to expand...

i wish I knew this...I always went to supermarkets and they always gave me horrible smelling boxes.
 
Any local grocery store is going to give you their boxes free of charge. What you want are the cereal boxes, specifically the Kellogg's boxes. They use a very thick, very rigid kind of cardboard to ship their stock and the boxes have fairly small holes where the flaps close up.

Show up at your store at opening and they will let you pick through them. If you are really anal, toss the guy working the cereal aisle $5 to set them aside for you and I guarantee you there will be a pile of them waiting for you.

edit: You're in Cambridge? I will hook you up. YGPM.
 
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