[Closed] if crc could do OTT packaging......

They get one big royal mail van, and all the boxes stack up nicely inside it. Imagine how much hassle it would be if everything was different sizes.

Plus think of the savings they would make on bulk buying boxes

tis ridiculous though. Pair of socks in a shoe box sized container. Waste waste waste.

Imagine the box if you bought a tandem...

Ordered some pawl springs from wiggle. The haribo and energy gel took up more space and weight than the £1.62 order I placed.

there is a thread on this from the other day somewhere..

What it came down to is that CRC have three different types of boxes, for most stuff. So any item will go into one of these boxes, hence why people get tiny things in larger than required boxes.

Easy enough to recycle the large box anyway, so it's not really waste as such.

Just wait until you want more stuff,
take advantage of the £10 off £75.

Ordering a pair of socks, or 5 chain pins from CRC is ridiculous.

And for small "need it to ride" bits, go to your LBS.

Does make you wonder though why when they were specifying their all-singing-and-all-dancing packing machine they didn't decide to include a "one or two small items box" in the range of sizes that the system could deal with. Other big on-line companies such as Amazon seem to be able to do this . . .

so many of us have experienced the large box, small item phenomena that is crc packaging

well if you knew of it and aren't in favour of it, why did you order something so small knowing it would come in a big box?

who cares?

paddy - yes, have seen a few of these threads over the years, so not a surprise. I once got a pair of mudguards in a box I could have put my 5yr old in ! 🙂

not sure on the 'not much waste' thing though..... a box gets packed, transported, opened, put in the recycling bin, uplifted, hopefully taken not to landfill but to recycling centre, mashed up into new 'ingredients', sold to a 'box manufacturer', sold to a retailer and used again.....when an envelope would have done just as good a job...)

sounds like a lot of waste to me..

jimmy - Member

tis ridiculous though. Pair of socks in a shoe box sized container. Waste waste waste.

Recycled and recyclable. A simple cardboard box is a pretty efficient way of packaging- no landfill, no plastics, no mixed material.

TBH nobody who mail orders tiny items can legitimately complain about waste.

ordering a pair of socks, or 5 chain pins from CRC is ridiculous.

what a lot of nonsense. £2 each from a bike shop. £7 for 5 from crc. I'd rather have the £3 😆

....and yes, I buy loads from LBS, mainly items that need a try before you buy, like clothing

Oh, and being off work this week, it would have cost me probably £3 in diesel to get to bike shop....s'pose I could have gone on bike, but it's not a pleasant ride or use of my time

If you put small hard items into a paper envelope then it tears and the items fall out.

lemonysam - yes, but 5 chain pins ? weighs about the same as a few sheets of paper 😆

the whole box can be recycled easily- the same cannot be said of padded jiffy bags

lemonysam - yes, but 5 chain pins ? weighs about the same as a few sheets of paper

i think i beat you - similar size box the other week containing, a shimano brake hose olive. 😆

i think i beat you - similar size box the other week containing, a shimano brake hose olive

what a lot of nonsense. £2 each from a bike shop. £7 for 5 from crc. I'd rather have the £3

....and yes, I buy loads from LBS, mainly items that need a try before you buy, like clothing

Oh, and being off work this week, it would have cost me probably £3 in diesel to get to bike shop....s'pose I could have gone on bike, but it's not a pleasant ride or use of my time

So you're lazy, mean and environmentally irresponsible.

Well done

put the cardboard in your recycling box and be thankful they didn't use any horrible bag with plastic bubble stuff stuck inside.

10% recyclable packaging that they can make with recycled card which is delivered flat packed and made into boxes at their warehouse and not need to have loads of different sized boxes and bags made somewhere and shipped to them along with lots of fresh air.

As mad as it seems it makes sense. As discussed many a time.

It is just a shame their machine cannot make smaller boxes.

Would help if people ordered more stuff that fills a box though and got spares of stuff in to save post journeys 😉

Have a similar size box waiting at the post office for me, it's got a chain link in it. 😐

CRC have a machine that automatically custom folds boxes for each order see http://www.bikeradar.com/road/news/article/chain-reaction-cycles-behind-the-scenes-29496 . Obviously cheaper than a human, but not smarter.

almost 20 post and no abuse for using shimano chains 🙄

@ iainc - Most people now have recycling bins, and evidence is showing that most people use these so it would still be re-used. Packing items individually would be time consuming (cost CRC more) and would no doubt involve plastic packaging that wouldn't be recycled.

It's free and I get the box to post things I sell on here and ebay etc. It's win win in my eyes

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/crc-packaging-sort-it-out

it saves them money, and saves on waste! plain and simple.

And their machine is junk. When you randomly get stuff in logical sized packaging? Machine broke.

I buy and sell so many bits and bobs, jiffy bags get used many times over anyway, even keep a stash at work (where all the bike stuff gets delivered)

I've stopped using them as my small stuff always ends up at the post office instead of on my door mat. Wiggle use a jiffy and will be posted if I am not in.

got a set of pedals pins in a box big enough for a pair of boots, it`s stupid,plus means going to post office to pick it up,postage becomes collectage,waste of cardboard, waste of time ,not impressed. 😕

Yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

And for small "need it to ride" bits, go to your LBS.

Can't always help though. My small bit in a large CRC box was a crank bolt for a pre 2007 Raceface Deus XC crank that I need for tonight. No where local would have that in stock.

TBH Amazon and Dabs are just as bad at doing this, and then fill up the space with plastic air packs!!

got a mech hanger (couldn't get it locally) and it arrived in a whopping great big box. Annoying as it would have gone through the post box in a envelope. Waste of a tree or two as well.

I love those small CRC boxes as they are a perfect size to put my wet mtb shoes in the airing cupboard with. The cardboard soaks up the moisture and stops any residual mud from getting on the towels etc. I use the box for about a month and then it goes into the recycling.

Matt24k - Member

I love those small CRC boxes as they are a perfect size to put my wet mtb shoes in the airing cupboard with. The cardboard soaks up the moisture and stops any residual mud from getting on the towels etc. I use the box for about a month and then it goes into the recycling

organdonor - Member

Ordering a pair of socks, or 5 chain pins from CRC is ridiculous.

And for small "need it to ride" bits, go to your LBS.

not one of the BSs L to me had the olive i mentioned above. one of them suggested i "get it from Chain Reaction". 😆

Waste of a tree or two as well.

Precisely not though... as you can recycle cardboard. You can't recycle a jiffy bag.

so if I order a small item rather than mid week delivery to my postbox and fitting Thursday / Friday for the weekend I now have to go to main post office ( usually Saturday morning ) to pick it up. So I burn 30 minutes of petrol or waste 1 hour cycling there and back only to wait 20 minutes in the Saturday morning post office que before returning. It's a Saturday FFS I should be riding not picking up bits. My local LBS have nothing I need. Not always the case but ordering early in the week post riding is sometimes required to keep them running for the next w/e. Also I always recycle jiffy bags by reusing them anyway. And I do not even need a jiffy bag. I small strong bag would suffice. Not imprressed..with this aspect of CRC.

i do still love them though!! Just a bit of a pain. 😀
However I now look elsewhere too. I never used to do that.

JUst makes more financial sense. And it's not THAT bad environmentally either.

So why cannot a machine knock up say a 2cm square box say the pedal pins etc.. that will fit through a letter box???

Surely that's an oversight
Having watched the video I now understand that a third small box line would have been required.. more expense I guess..

Whilst I understand the nature of the square boxes improving efficiency in the logistics of delivery, I can't help but believe it is a massive inconvenience and still wasteful. Surely there's a cardboard only (coarse cardboard instead of bubble wrap) jiffy bag somewhere that could be used, or a dvd case sized box for those tiny items so that they can fit in a letter box.

Perhaps the volume of orders for tiny bits is incomparable to the orders which do fill boxes, and so are packaged most efficiently. And the small nuisance that is for tiny orders is a sacrifice happily made for streamlining the entirety of the rest of the post.

Yesterday's CRC delivery came through the letter box in a jiffy bag 🙂

I have had smaller stuff in a big box though - almost seems random.