How to Break Glass and Lose Customers

One of the biggest complaints I hear from other collectors is how many pieces of vintage and antique glass are broken during shipping. How tragic is that! I find it hard to believe that anyone would throw a beautiful piece in a box with “a piece of used bubble wrap and a couple of sheets of newspaper.” That’s a direct quote. Seriously, who does that?! What glass lover – and aren’t the majority of glass dealers just collectors that can’t stop buying? – would treat a bit of history that way? I sell online but I had never bought online and so I assumed that everyone packed as I do. It seemed reasonable to me that people would want the items that they are shipping to arrive intact and for their customers to be pleased. I was sure my friends were exaggerating to make a point. That is until I bought an item on ebay… dun... dun... dun *eerie music*

My college age daughter’s cell phone had somehow ended up in the shower – I didn’t ask, I don’t think I want to know – so we were looking for a cheap replacement and found one on ebay. It arrived in a plain envelope with a torn off piece of a used padded envelope with “for padding” written on it. I’m guessing he wrote that so we wouldn’t think that some trash had accidentally ended up in with the phone. Of course, the screen was cracked and we had to have a huge fight to get our money back, which we finally did… but I have gone off on a tangent.

The point is that now I understand why those collectors are upset. Apparently they were not exaggerating and people do think that one sheet of bubble wrap is sufficient padding. Are these sellers uncaring or just uninformed? Let’s be nice and assume that they mean well but they need some help in the basics of packing delicate items. So just in case you, dear reader, may be one of those people :) here are some hints on packing glass or any other delicate object.

1. Wrap the item in tissue paper – it’s cheap, it looks nice and an extra layer can’t hurt.

2. Use new bubble-wrap unless your recycled wrap is like new. Broken bubbles don’t protect anything.

3. Wrap the item in the bubble-wrap. If you can still feel the edges, use more bubble-wrap.

4. Roll your bubble wrapped item in one or two sheets of newspaper. I don’t know why this works but it does, maybe it protects the bubble-wrap. In addition, it’s recycling.

5. If it’s a very fragile item, wrap it an additional time with the big bubble bubble-wrap that you have cleverly saved from something.

6. If you have more than one item in the box, it’s extremely important to tape them together, after you wrap them separately. More items are broken from hitting against another item in the box than from outside forces.

7. I like recycled boxes but make sure that the corners and sides haven’t been compromised by being dented or creased. I do admit that I have used these when desperate but I reinforce the bent part with additional cardboard on the inside of the box.

8. Make sure your box is big enough for 2” of padding around the item(s). It sounds like a lot but it’s not really. I like newspaper because it’s free and I can vary how tightly I crumple and how densely I pack it into the box. With heavier items, I use denser packing so that I don’t worry about the item shifting in transit.

9. A way to check if there’s enough padding is to push on the padding with the amount of pressure you think the item would exert, if you can feel the box add more padding.

10. Sometimes, if I’m feeling especially paranoid I will push on the outside of the box to see if I can hear any bubbles popping. But that’s probably going overboard. (probably?? girl, get a grip!)

11. Shake the box, if you hear anything there’s not enough packing.

12. Write Fragile and Glass on the package. I actually don’t think this does any good– I’ve seen how packages are tossed around in the post office - but it makes me feel better.

13. Ship Priority, not Parcel Post. A small package gets a lot more beat up shipping by Parcel Post because that’s how many heavy, bulky items are shipped.

14. Oops… somewhere above step 13 you should seal the package securely with packing tape. (duh) If it’s a recycled box, be sure to reinforce the existing seals.

This is by no means a comprehensive list – it’s just my little hints. Please feel free to add your own hints to the comments!

Karen