Establishing standardized print shipping methods

[David R Munson]

As I gear up for doing more in the way of print sales, I am now to the point of trying to figure out how, exactly to ship prints safely and cost-effectively. I will need to ship Ultrachrome prints on 8.5x11" or 11x14"/11x17" size paper both inside the United States and internationally. The prints would be shipped un-matted in archival paper envelopes.



In the past I have used mailers from MasterPak USA and have really liked their products. They keep the prints very safe. However, their products are a bit on the pricy side and not the most practical for shipping high volumes of smaller prints internationally. I've thought about using the normal document-sized FedEx Express boxes, but I can't really use them for shipping via Air Mail. Are there good sources for similar small, rigid boxes?



For the 8.5x11" prints, I want to ship them flat and see no reason that I shouldn't be able to. For the larger prints, though, I'm considering maybe using heavy shipping tubes, though again I'm not sure about good sources for these things in quantity.



Thoughts, anyone? I want to establish a standardized method early on so that I can keep things streamlined and costs minimized. Thanks!

[Paul Butzi]

For small prints, shipping them flat in rigid mailers works fine. Adding rigid material helps.

For slightly larger prints, I've had success shipping stuff flat between two sheets of masonite cut to the right size.

Shipping tubes sized so that the print can't shift lengthwise in the tube are great.

I just bought a boatload from uline (www.uline.com (http://www.uline.com). The three inch tubes are fine, but I bought a pile of 4" x 36" tubes, and they're great. I wish I'd bought 4x24 tubes instead of 3x24. You can get your hand into a 4" tube, which helps.

I finally figured out that to make it easy to get the prints out, roll the prints, then roll a sheet of paper the right length and width matched to the circumference of the tube around that roll, with little tape tabs on it. The recipient can extract the whole bolus by pulling on the tape tabs and sliding it out, instead of the tempting approach of grabbing the corner inside the tube on pulling, which kinks the prints.

I'll be interested to see what others are doing...

[Eric Biggerstaff]

One of the best print shipping methods I ever saw was from Alan Ross.

He shipped me a matted print that was sandwiched between to pieces of regular 2 inch rigid foam insulation like you would use for your house (cheap at Home Depot). The mat size was 20X24 so the foam was a little wider than that . The print was place in a protective bag and taped to one of the foam sides. He then cut another piece of foam the same size and sandwiched the print between them and taped the outside edges. Then on one oustide pieces of foam he taped a heavy piece of cardboard cut to the same size as the foam and he put the shipping label on that.

The whole thing weighed next to nothing and is cheap and fast to create.