Shipping Large Boxes of Books

Shipping Large sets of books – Protecting your self, your books and your customer

(similar to the books sold)

A few years ago I got an order for a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica 1910 / 1911 edition. This was a nice set of books. An employee and I wrapped the books two at a time in Kraft paper and put the books into 75-pound test boxes I had obtained from Staples. The books were well wrapped and we padded the sides so that the books would not shift. The boxes were sealed securely with 2” wide shipping tape. I had no doubt that the packages would arrive in good shape at their destination. About 2 weeks after I shipped the books I got e-mail from the customer stating that he had not received his books and instead had received empty boxes that were crushed and mangled.

I sent the books with delivery confirmation and it was easy to track the shipment on the USPS web site. The tracking information showed that the books had arrived at their destination on (I am doing this from memory) on day in early September and had immediately been delivered. I wondered how this could occur. I did some investigating and found that the book had been shipped to a US Embassy on the Texas / Mexico border. Apparently the books had been delivered to the Post Office and immediately placed into the mail hoppers provided by the Embassy. Several days later the Embassy mailroom delivered the empty boxes to my customer.

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