Materials guide for LEGO selling & shipping

Many members have asked for a centralized place where they can go for shipping box information. I'm going to pin this post and update it as new information is provided. I just want to take a few minutes and thank those who wrote the following articles. They are still very good reference materials for the LEGO storage and shipping process. I may develop this into a blog article eventually.

Fcbarcelona101's : Selling LEGO : Basic Materials Guide
Mos Eisley 's : LEGO Storage Wars

Incompetech's Catalog of Amazon.com Box Sizes - (thanks No More Monkeys)

Amazon Boxes Sorted list by length - courtesy of pstebbing

I've scoured the forums and here is a list of box sizes with basic set information:

Boxes:
24x20x8 : Super Star Destroyer; Death Star, Roller Coaster, UCS Sandcrawler, Assembly Square
24x20x6 : Thicker sets like Town Hall, Tower Bridge
24x16x6 - 60052 Cargo Train, R2-D2, Maersk Line Triple-E, 7939 Cargo Train
24x16x4 - Helm's Deep, Vampyre Castle, Black Pearl, Friends Riding Camp, Parisian Restaurant, High Speed Passenger Train, Jabba's Palace, Downtown Diner
24x20x4 : Grand Emporium, Pet Shop, Imperial Shuttle, Haunted House, Palace Cinema, Fire Brigade
24x14x4 : Dolphin Cruiser, Coast Guard Patrol
24x4x12 - Dolphin Cruiser, Coast Guard Patrol
20x16x4 - Volkswagen Camper Van, Olivia's House, Sonic Raider, Sopwith, Creator Bike Shop, Batcave, Quinjet, Moria & Ambush
20x16x6 : Thicker sets like the Republic Gunship; City Cargo Plane
20x14x4 : Attack on Weathertop, Hulk 's Helicarrier Breakout, X-Wing 9493, Black Gate
16x16x4 : Gungan Sub, Pre Viszla, Tie Fighter
16x10x4 : Council of Elrond, Desert Skiff, City Grand Prix Truck
16x10x6 : Thicker sets like Creator Family House, Hillside House
15x12x4 : Funhouse, Orc Forge, Tumbler Chase, Daily Bugle Showdown, Hulk Lab Smash
12x12x4 : Uruk Hai Army, City Cargo Truck, Creator Treehouse, City Fire Emergency
11-3/4x8-3/4x4-3/4 : Wolverine Chopper, Arctic Batman, Power Armor Lex, Droid Escape, Cloud Cuckoo Palace
12x8x3 - Battle Packs, CA Avenging Cycle, Catwoman, Gandalf Arrives, Holiday sets
10x8x4 : Battle Packs, CA Avenging Cycle, Catwoman, Gandalf Arrives, Holiday sets

Envelopes:
4x8 : Minifigs & small polybags
6x9 : Polybags small & larger
10.5 x 16 : Larger shipments of 3 x polybags or more

Packing Tape : buy in bulk or on sale : you can throw some in during a Staples coupon promotion to get up to free shipping
Walmart.com Duck Brand Packaging Tape
http://www.staples.com/Staples-Standard-Grade-Packaging-Tape-Clear-189-x-110-yds-6-Rolls/product_380107

Retailers:
Uline.com : holiday sale starts first part of November (usually 30% off)
Staples.com : use coupon promotions - $10 off $30, $20 off $75, free shipping over $60
Walmart.com
USPS Priority Mail (free boxes at USPS.com)

 

Michigan Box Company:

Flat Boxes 18"-23" L  (thanks pstebbing)

GBE Packaging (thanks pstebbing)
 

PackingSupplies.com

http://www.packaging...ated_boxes.html     (thanks pstebbing)

 

Bubble Wrap:
3/16" thick x 350' ft x 12" wide - eBay

 

Sams Club

3/16" - 12"x240' $12.98 (In store) ($.05/LF) (thanks pstebbing)

I like to use large and small retailer plastic bags to wrap items in, even after I bubble wrap it.

For battle packs and even small sets, I sometimes use Wal-Mart, Target, or plastic bags from any store. Additional packing isn 't really needed. Usually like 2 bags on bottom, one to wrap the item, and two bags on top. Make sure to cover the corners of the item real nice to provide extra padding.

Rule of thumb : ship & pack all of your items the same way you 'd like to receive items you've purchased.

Shipping Paper:
Collect it when you receive shipments.
http://www.amazon.com/Pratt-Multipurpose-Packaging-KPR30241200R-Length/dp/B00AI652CM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408061459&sr=8-1&keywords=pratt+kraft+paper+1200?

Shipping Labels & Printers:
Dymo 450 & Dymo 400
Brother QL-700

DoNotInsertIntoMouth's : How to setup your label printer for shipping on eBay


Feel free to post a follow-up or point out anything I missed. I 'll update it with what everyone wants added. I hope this is helpful.

For all the fees they charge, they should be giving this stuff to sellers for free.

26 minutes ago, labfreak7 said:

For all the fees they charge, they should be giving this stuff to sellers for free.

Those fees are to cover for everyone whom they need to reimburse after falling for yet another too-good-to-be-true deal.....

For all the fees they charge, they should be giving this stuff to sellers for free.

Have you checked out Amazon seller fees?

any deals on packing materials?

Anyone got any feedback for shipping big lego sets / exclusives in single wall cardboard boxes?

I've personally only ever used double wall boxes, probably overkill but I bought them a long time ago and now reaching point where I need to recorder. 

Single wall is fine, just pack tight.

Staples used to have supply deals quite often. It seems like it's been forever.

Here's how I pack my sets:

<£100: Single walled box custom made to allow for 2 layers of large bubble-wrap (eg. for CITY and IDEAS sets) about 30p per box.

>£100: Double walled box custom made to allow for 4 layers of bubble-wrap (eg. for large Technic. Modular and UCS sets) about £1 per box.

I now get boxes of different sizes custom made in quantities of 200 which works out the same as ordering 100 stock boxes. I use a mate's company to get the large volume discounts. Having the correct size makes packing so much easier and saves me hours of work a week.

Since I've seen the way that certain couriers treat boxes, I will NEVER use a single walled box for anything expensive.!

I still pick-up used laptop and monitor boxes which are great but, need a bit of modification.

On 8/30/2016 at 11:17 PM, jerryherb said:

any deals on packing materials?

 

On 10/17/2016 at 8:55 AM, iahawks550 said:

Staples used to have supply deals quite often. It seems like it's been forever.

Does this help anyone?  Stack on a discount gift card or two?

Staples coupon $20 off $100 regular priced items

Coupon code:97080

13 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

 

Just used the coupon code to buy firetv sticks.
 

With black friday and cyber monday around the corner?

5 minutes ago, pstebbing said:

With black friday and cyber monday around the corner?

Sorry, that was language carried over from Slickdeals.

Don't know if this helps anyone, but Staples has a $10 off $50 code that works on shipping boxes  Code is 95951 

Does anyone have a link to USPS's commercial base rate charts by zoning and weight? For some reason I cannot find the old ones I was referring to.

1 minute ago, MinifigW said:

Does anyone have a link to USPS's commercial base rate charts by zoning and weight? For some reason I cannot find the old ones I was referring to.

FC? or PM?

Just now, pstebbing said:

FC? or PM?

Both if possible

Just now, MinifigW said:

Both if possible

FC.

PM

Just now, pstebbing said:

FC.

PM

Thanks!

Sorry thats PM xpress.

looking for reg PM chart

 

see if this is what you were after.

That's it. Thank you. Do you happen to know where you found that on the USPS website?

Is this how USPS (Ebay) figures out the charges for your Priority package, or is zone pricing a completely different way of sending packages? Horribly phrased question.

1 minute ago, iahawks550 said:

Is this how USPS (Ebay) figures out the charges for your Priority package, or is zone pricing a completely different way of sending packages? Horribly phrased question.

Yes to ebay.

7 minutes ago, MinifigW said:

That's it. Thank you. Do you happen to know where you found that on the USPS website?

I grabbed it off an image search. The actual info found on USPS is harder to read, but here is the link.

http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm

Does this look about right to you shipping experts? For USPS Parcel ground CBP? Just want to make sure it doesn't look wildly off before I add the info to BL

2 hours ago, MinifigW said:

Does this look about right to you shipping experts? For USPS Parcel ground CBP? Just want to make sure it doesn't look wildly off before I add the info to BL

What do you want to do with this? Sounds horribly complicated for your average customer to figure out.