Record for over-packaging?

Coming in at a volume ratio of 2118 times the volume of goods (4236 if I had just bought the one), I give you Silca who sent me this box with two elastomer seals. What have you got to beat this record?

I once ordered some ‘Space saving stacking crates’ direct from the AUER factory in Germany.

Some time later I was at work and I got a text from my GF saying ‘what have you done?’ and a photo of 3 monolithic wardrobe sized cardboard boxes in our living room.

I had a bit of panic – I’d only wanted 10 crates but suddenly wondered what a ‘unit’ is on the order form – is a unit 10 crates? or 100? Managed to convince myself I’d accidentally  bought 1000 crates

Got home and opened the boxes – the ‘space saving crates’ had been packed with their lids on and stacked 4 high leaving a void at the top of the box where the 5th wouldn’t quite fit. So two of the massive boxes only contained 4 crates each and the third had just two in, taking up less than half of the space in the box.

I unpacked them, opened the lids, stacked them up and they took up less space then two lidded crates – exactly as they’re supposed to – just as they demonstrate in their own video

Dell used to be notorious for wasteful packaging. I once received a 1U server (45mm high, 48cm wide and about 80cm deep) in a server sized box. It was bout three times the volume of the server with packaging. Fine. Kept it safe.

Dell in their infinite wisdom though shipped the RAID controller separately.  This was basically a hardware license token that enabled a load of features on the server’s main board. It was about 15cm long, 4mm thick and about 3cm wide. It came in the same sized box as the server itself. On a pallet.

Ive also had instruction manuals and paper trays for big, industrial HP printers arrive separately to the printer, in similar sized boxes.  HP used to seal them with beautiful fabric tie downs. These I kept and used to make up straps for surf boards and bike racks.

Oakley surpassed themselves when I bought a single sunglass bag…

I think the big boxes for tiny objects is an automated sorting thing. Packages move around warehouses during the distribution / delivery on automated conveyor belts and they can sometimes be quite specific about what size and shape objects they handle – smaller packages would just fall through the gabs. So the boxes may well be a particular carrier’s requirement rather than the vendors choice.

I had a box the OPs size from crc for a cyclus nipple tool (think short 8mm drill bit size), loose in the box.

Had a couple of small bags of dog treats the other day in a big long box big enough to put a rotary washing line in. Must get out of this habit of buying small stuff from Amazon, though.

Bike24 just managed to squeeze a couple of BB bearings into a shoebox…

A while back, we had something small (neither of us remember specific item) from Amazon delivered in a box measuring ~100*10*10cm!

Thankfully, they do seem to be getting better at suitable box sizes and combining the odd order.

In the opposite direction…

I once had a set of forks delivered…. Through a letter box.

Reynolds steel road forks admittedly but they were very well wrapped just also very efficiently.

I had some bubble wrap delivered boxed and wrapped in bubble wrap.

Slightly different but when my granddaughter came to stay for a 1 NIGHT sleepover she packed 2 suitcases, a sports bag, 2 handbags, a small rucksack and a makeup bag.

She was 5 and her mum did day that she could pack her own bag so perhaps can be excused.

Here’s my entry,

A single replacement Sandisk micro usb card. Express post from somewhere in Central Europe. Apologies for the poor quality phone cameras have come a long way since 2012

Here’s my entry,

A single replacement Sandisk micro usb card. Express post from somewhere in Central Europe.

I’m glad you posted this.  I don’t have a photo, but I had a warranty replacement Sandisk micro SD card in very similar packaging a couple of years ago.  It hasn’t changed.

Board games. Any board game. Massive boxes, tiny contents.  It’s not like all the boxes are the same size for easy storage!!!

I had a similar sized box to the OP from CRC once.

For two new Marzocchi inflation valves, the same size as your average valve core…