Packaging your parcels

Packaging is the sender's responsibility. The courier carries the parcel; making sure it can survive an ordinary road trip is down to you, and a damage claim on a badly packed parcel will not succeed.

Choosing a box

• •Use a sturdy corrugated box with the flaps intact.
• •Do not use fruit boxes, cereal boxes or whatever was going spare at the supermarket — they collapse under stacking.
• •Heavy things go in smaller, double-walled boxes. Light bulky things go in bigger ones.
• •Leave room for padding on all sides; nothing should touch the wall of the box.

Sealing

• •Use proper packing tape, not masking tape or sellotape.
• •Tape every seam in an H-pattern — along the centre seam and across both ends.
• •For anything heavy, criss-cross extra tape across the bottom.

Labelling

• •Address the parcel clearly, even though the waybill carries the details.
• •Mark anything breakable FRAGILE on more than one face.
• •Take the old labels off if you are reusing a box.

Weight and size the courier will accept

• •Maximum 1 m × 1 m × 1 m, and 50 kg.
• •Courier lockers: 20 kg, and it has to fit the locker box.
• •17 kg is the most one person may lift. Break a heavier carton into smaller ones where you can.
• •If it cannot be broken down, have someone at both the collection and the delivery address to help the driver.

Before the driver arrives

• •Have the parcel packed, sealed and labelled before the collection window opens.
• •Print the waybill from your Orders page and attach it, or have it ready for the driver.
• •If a driver arrives and there is nothing ready to collect, the wasted trip is charged to your shop.