Free cardboard boxes, any ideas?

Bowling_4_Gold

Costco (if you can gain access to it) always have mountains of cardboard boxes for public use. There is a wide selection from big to small and there are often very strong ones available. Usually piled up behind the checkouts.

If that fails, try Lidl.

jasmineswhiskers

If you go down the booze isle of Tesco, Sainsburys etc they're usually always putting bottles out. Wine and spirit boxes are much stronger than say crisp packet boxes - these are what I use.

paulc333

Small shops are normally more than happy to let you have them, i've worked in a few and normally they have to pay to get them taken away so generally they are happy to let them go. You may need to tape them back together though as generally they get broken down as they go.

kittykirsty

tomtiddly wrote: »

How about trying yours/partners/friends places of work's IT or premises departments etc? We get loads of boxes into our IT dept. and we save them all for one lady who eBays chinaware!

Lots of other kinds of offices will buy their paper by the box, so worthwhile asking about that too. Since reams of paper are so heavy, they are really good sturdy boxes, sometimes with removable lids too.

Valanita

Morrisons banana boxes are ideal & they have lids. They are kept in a room by the fruit & veg in our Morrisons, just ask.
For fragile items you might want to cover the bottom with cardboard though & the top too possibly.

MaidMarianofNottingham

Thank you to everyone who posted suggestions.
Here's a report on how I fared:
Freecycle was the best source and I collected boxes from two people. One was a small independent shop who showed me where their recycling bin was located and suggested I help myself in future.
The other person gave me lots of boxes and will also get back in touch when they have more boxes.
Both were grateful for me liberating their cardboard boxes.
The Co-op suggested I call back after 6pm when staff are restocking shelves.
A small independent shop offered me crisp boxes but had none currently.
I love Freecycle, have used it previously about five/six years ago but had forgotten just how useful it can be and mutually beneficial.
All in all, you have been great with your suggestions and I very much appreciate your help.

fridayschild_2

Glad you were able to get the boxes you needed for your ebay selling.

I have a huge stack in my spare room for just such an occasion

Just in case you need any more or different sizes;

Tesco, particularly the smaller stores, usually have a few at the end of their tills. The boxes their plastic bags come in are quite useful.

Ask friends and family to save their boxes for you.

Soap powder tablets come in very sturdy boxes (not the loose powder, too messy )

Do remember though, to weigh your item in the boxes when listing, some boxes are particularly heavy and will add to your postage considerably.

Don't forget to pick up rolls of parcel tape from your nearest £1 or 99p store. I buy both brown and clear so that I can tape over address labels to stop smudges in the rain.

You can also buy rolls of brown paper from these shops, it is not great paper but it does 'tidy things up' when you put it over those soap powder boxes etc and if you tape all the edges with the brown tape is secure and more professional looking.

Tesco also sell FRAGILE tape in their larger stores. It seems to be cheaper there than other places.

£1 stores do sell bubble wrap but only in very small rolls so if you are selling a lot of things you might find it cheaper to go to somewhere like Staples and buy a bigger roll.

Also ask your family and friends to save any polystyrene chips they get and after packing your items in bubblewrap fill out the corners of your box with either the chips or in a larger box screw up some newspaper to fill gaps.

DON'T FORGET TO WEIGH IT AGAIN BEFORE YOU GO TO THE POST OFFICE!

Good luck with it all

Crowqueen

Fridays - thanks for that tip on soap-powder boxes. Don't have much that I could post in them, but if I were to start selling off some of my dolls again, they would make brilliant packaging.