About

Over the years I have found that purchasing packaging supplies is a more complicated task then I would have thought.  There are so many options in the United States that it can actually be a waste of money to shop all of them.  The options are really endless and sometimes time is really a much bigger factor.  Being able to purchase the right things and have them get to you at the correct timing is important for any business or regular person on a schedule.  I will go over some basic supplies and the best places to purchase them at and give a time frame that goes along with each one.

When it comes to supplies almost every company that ships products will need tape.  I suggest you map out the size of your projects and the amount of tape you will use per week. Preferably I would map out the amount of tape you will use for a month and this is done by counting the amount of roles, the lengths and widths of the tape used and what type.  If you are looking for packing tape many different sizes exist.  There are also different clarities of tape.  

Do you need your packages to look fancy? I would suggest using clear tape and the best place I have found is amazon.  They offer many different brands and companies, but I find that there is usually one brand that will be on sale vs the others.  You can order the largest quantity and sometimes find it up to a 50% discount from purchasing it from a box store.  This discount could be hundreds of dollars in savings every month or thousands depending on the quantity you use. The best part is shipping is usually free and within 2 days!

When it comes to getting mailers or packages I suggest getting them from Staples.  I found they consistently have lower prices than amazon and office depot. It was purely by chance that I found this out.  For one of our shipments at work we ran out early due to a miscount.  We had to ship these marketing items out by the end of the day to keep our deadline and we had no packages left.  We called many stores and the correct size we needed was at Staples. 

When we arrived we found they had the quantity we needed on hand and the cost was several dollars cheaper per package than what we had purchased online.  So we got the item immediately and for less. I would suggest getting your packaging supplies from Staples for this reason.