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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

for over 23 years and owning a UPS store, visited BOTH the main DHL hub in Wilmington, OH and the main FedEx hub in Memphis, I can tell you there's little difference between all the services. The most advanced hub of any of them is the Air Hub here in Louisville. About a $2B building where packages RARELY even touch each other due to singulated flow......(will explain in another heavily more boring thread....okay, maybe not). Anyway, I'd agree that if you're having 8/10 packages damaged you have (a) problems with who's packing them or (b) a disgruntled employee at your local facility. Either a pre-loader....the dude that loads the truck....OR your driver. I would call 1-800-PICK-UPS and report the issues. If you are reporting the claims and seeking reimbursement through insurance, they will FOR SURE be working on the issue. We ship about 1000 packages a month from my ups store and our claims rate is about 1/500 packages. Of those, RARELY was one packed by our store.

Remember some stuff about packing.......newspaper does NOT work. It's okay for moving between two houses, but not for shipping. WHY? It doesn't have 'memory'. Memory is where the packing material is pushed but returns back to it's original shape/size. If newspaper is pushed, it does not push back. Peanuts and bubble wrap are the best items for shipping. They have 'memory'. Also....to PROPERLY pack an item for UPS/FedEx/DHL or other carriers, you should bubble wrap it and leave 2 inches all around for peanuts. These are procedures more for three-dimensional items, not cards specifically.

Pictures and picture frames are MUCH more difficult items to pack. Properly packing a picture frame is an expensive proposition too. Most people don't want to pay to properly pack them. It's best to put glassmask on them first. Kind of like a masking tape that's about a foot wide and should be put over the whole glass surface for just the situation that George outlined. Then foam planking over the glass surface, then bubble wrapped around whole frame/picture, then peanutted with 2 inches all around. When you follow those rules, using boxes that have not been used before, you should be okay.

Boxes.....everyone tries to go to Krogers or wherever to pickup 'free' boxes but they've been used before and often already have weakened sides and corners. To pimp my own service, the UPS Stores carry about 60 sizes of boxes. They are not cheap but they are SPECIFICALLY made for UPS and other carrier services. They have the best burst test strength. And.....pack the packages correctly but DON'T use fragile stickers. They're notes to the idiots moving the boxes that something's in them.

As Dennis Miller used to say, 'that's just my opinion.....I could be wrong'