Shipping Tips to Ensure Safe and Timely Holiday Deliveries

Annex Brand Shipping Stores offer residents advice on their holiday shipping

Isn’t it frustrating when you send a gift for the holidays and it’s delivered on December 26th or even later? Improper packing is a major reason many packages arrive after the holidays. To help ensure that your packages arrive on time and undamaged, Steve Goble — vice president of marketing communications for Annex Brands — offers a few packaging and shipping tips for the holidays:
Shipping sooner rather than later. Packages sent on December 22nd can cost up to five times as much as packages sent earlier.
Use a new box. Old boxes may break apart in transit, and may display old shipping labels, resulting in the package being delivered back to your own house.
Don’t use brown wrapping paper. If it is torn from the package, the delivery label will go with it, leaving an unlabeled box for the carrier to deal with.
Put an extra mailing label inside the package. If the delivery label becomes separated from the box, the carrier can still complete delivery if a copy of the delivery address is found inside the box.
Never use string. It gets caught in sorting machines, mangling packages and their contents.
Use proper packing materials. Bubble wrap and packing peanuts protect your packages better than newspaper or old t-shirts.
Fill your box completely with packaging materials. This keeps the flaps from caving in, breaking the tape seal and resulting in contents falling out.
Use professional grade packaging tape. Don’t use duct tape: it loses its adhesiveness in cold weather. Masking and cellophane tape also won’t withstand the rigors of the shipping process.
Don’t ship batteries. Batteries are considered hazardous material and therefore not allowed.
Send perishables in airtight containers. Fill in any gaps inside the container with bubble wrap to keep baked goods from arriving crumbled.
Send gift cards with tracking. Gift cards cannot always be replaced if they are lost.

For more information, please visit www.annexbrands.com.

Contacts

Annex Brand Shipping
Steve Goble, 619-563-4800 or 800-456-1525
Vice President of Marketing & Communications
sgoble {at} annexbrands(.)com