Crappy packaging

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I've just taken delivery the bass I bought at the weekend on ebay. I never expected it to be sent by royal mail std parcel service - not recorded or signed for.

The bass is a lovely daisy rock elite with glued in neck and angled back headstock so my heart sank when I saw the parcel as even from a distance I could see that it wasn't padded at all. The outline of the parcel seemed to be the same size and shape of the bass. I was expecting to find a headstock break.

Packaging materials used were:

[list]
[*]a bin bag
[*]About half a roll of parcel tape
[*]nearly a whole roll of electrical insulating tape
[*]A piece of cardboard wrapped just around the neck
[*]a small piece (less than 6" x 12") of quarter-inch thick foam
[/list]

The tape was tightly wrapped around the outside like a mummy so it wasn't protected from dropping or falling over at all. Foam had been taped around the headstock, but it was probably about one tenth of the amount required to protect from a headstock break had it fallen. The bass was then inside a smelly/dirty thin old (80s I'd guess) gigbag which I put straight in the bin.

Luckily the bass had survived and the headstock was intact, but this is the third time I've had in instrument off ebay with similar packaging.

Who else has been amazed at stupid ebay packaging on something recieved? My previous one was a daisy rock guitar similarly wrapped but with cling-film instead of the bin bag.

[neepheid]

I've seen flimsy packaging before, but only eyebrow raising than outright amazement level - nothing as bad as you describe here.

[EssentialTension]

Not as scary as your story but I once received an effects pedal not in its cardboard box but in a Tesco Bag with the handles knotted and and a sticky label with my name address and stamps on it.

[waynepunkdude]

My Jazz arrived in 2 bin bags, luckily it only had 1 bent machine head, the thing is the guy charged me £20 for P&P the postage was £10 so I wonder how pricey his local Tescos is.

[lemmywinks]

Received my Warmoth Jazz in just an unlocked Gator case with a Parcel Force sticker slapped on it!

[thedontcarebear]

I received a valve amp in just 1 layer of the thinnest bubble wrap ever!

Shattered tubes all over the place.

[ahpook]

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='307126' date='Oct 15 2008, 02:44 PM']Not as scary as your story but I once received an effects pedal not in its cardboard box but in a Tesco Bag with the handles knotted and and a sticky label with my name address and stamps on it.[/quote]

oooch - i though my boss pedal stuffed into a tired old envelope with an A5 piece of squashed bubblewrap in with it was bad.

as it happens i chased the vendor up and got £20 back off him...

[EssentialTension]

[quote name='ahpook' post='307171' date='Oct 15 2008, 03:50 PM']oooch - i though my boss pedal stuffed into a tired old envelope with an A5 piece of squashed bubblewrap in with it was bad.

as it happens i chased the vendor up and got £20 back off him...[/quote]

When I emailed my vendor saying 'I wasn't impressed with the packaging', he replied 'Why not? What was wrong with it?'. Even when I explained he just didn't get it.

[ahpook]

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='307194' date='Oct 15 2008, 04:19 PM']When I emailed my vendor saying 'I wasn't impressed with the packaging', he replied 'Why not? What was wrong with it?'. Even when I explained he just didn't get it.[/quote]

that's rough. as it happens the pedal i bought arrived with one of the knobs bent. as the vendor hadn't mentioned this in his description he couldn't argue really - he'd either tried to palm off a damaged pedal or packed it so badly it had taken a major bash.

[spinynorman]

I had one that arrived in a large cardboard box, similar to a removal company packing case, but not as strong. The seller had just dumped the bass in the box with no padding at all, so it was leaning at 45 degrees inside the box. The courier took a lump out of the body and I wonder if later problems I had with the neck were related to the journey. I think the seller was annoyed because he didn't get the price he wanted.

Another one arrived in a iMac G3 Server carton with several inches of neck and the headstock poking through the top, wrapped in a bin liner. No damage to that one, amazingly.

[stu_g]

i had an aria pro II laser bass sent to me just covered in bin bag and tape no cardboard nothing how it arrived in one piece i dont know but it did,i seriously dont know what some people are thinking when they send stuff loons!

[Happy Jack]

On the other hand, a year ago I shipped a Selmer Treble'n'Bass valve amp to Sarajevo. I got our Despatch Department to sort it out properly.

It was bubble-wrapped, inside a sturdy cardboard box packed out with styrofoam chips, which was heavily bubble-wrapped, and placed inside a truly magnificent cardboard box packed out with foam sheeting. I had removed all the valves and individually bubble-wrapped each of them. This thing would have won prizes in a wrapping competition.

Two weeks later the buyer emailed me to say that he'd just collected the parcel from his local Customs Depot. Half the valves were broken and the back of the amp was missing.

He was delighted.

Compared to the way that Bosnian Customs usually treat in-bound parcels, this was the best condition he'd ever received an amp in.

I kid you not.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Happy Jack

[josh3184]

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='307261' date='Oct 15 2008, 05:32 PM']On the other hand, a year ago I shipped a Selmer Treble'n'Bass valve amp to Sarajevo. I got our Despatch Department to sort it out properly.

It was bubble-wrapped, inside a sturdy cardboard box packed out with styrofoam chips, which was heavily bubble-wrapped, and placed inside a truly magnificent cardboard box packed out with foam sheeting. I had removed all the valves and individually bubble-wrapped each of them. This thing would have won prizes in a wrapping competition.

Two weeks later the buyer emailed me to say that he'd just collected the parcel from his local Customs Depot. Half the valves were broken and the back of the amp was missing.

He was delighted.

Compared to the way that Bosnian Customs usually treat in-bound parcels, this was the best condition he'd ever received an amp in.

I kid you not.[/quote]

that's magnificent!

[dangerboy]

Happy Jack - you should work in a museum! Great packing mate.

I once received a bass in just a bin bag. It was a piece of s**t anyway so God knows whether it had been damaged in transit.

One of the recurring themes here, though, is that a lot of basses are getting delivered in a bin bag and they're fine!

[d-basser]

and to think i was worried i hadnt used enough bubble wrap and padding around my bass that is in a hardcase (philster dont worry i did, I am just paranoid)

I dont understand how anyone could just chuck a bass in a bag for postage, there sould be a restraining order slapped on them keeping them from harming any innocent instruments in future

Edited October 15, 2008 by d-basser

[waynepunkdude]

On the flipside I got my P from GAK they packed it great (as you would expect) but also threw in a free gig bag WIN!!!

[Protium]

I once received a Marshall Guvnor in a childs shoebox packed with tissue paper which was slightly flattened with a bootmark over the address... Only that there were no holes for the jacks I'd have thought they'd had it thru an amp at the PO

[budget bassist]

Surprisingly everything i've ever ordered from anywhere has been superbly packed and arrived in top condition! I have just ordered a guitar amp though, we'll see how that one turns out

I actually get very anal about packing because i'd feel a bit guilty if something broke in transit. I usually put the bass in a gig bag if i dont have a hardcase, then wrap it in lots of the big kind of bubble wrap, particularly the neck and headstock, and then tape it all up and try and cram it inside a cardboard box and wrap copious amounts of tape round that. Once for good measure i even glued polystyrene inside the whole of the cardboard box. I was proud of that one!

I'm the kind of guy that hoards bubble wrap and foam and boxes though! Makes it cheaper to post

[waynepunkdude]

[quote name='budget bassist' post='307488' date='Oct 15 2008, 11:47 PM']Surprisingly everything i've ever ordered from anywhere has been superbly packed and arrived in top condition! I have just ordered a guitar amp though, we'll see how that one turns out

I actually get very anal about packing because i'd feel a bit guilty if something broke in transit. I usually put the bass in a gig bag if i dont have a hardcase, then wrap it in lots of the big kind of bubble wrap, particularly the neck and headstock, and then tape it all up and try and cram it inside a cardboard box and wrap copious amounts of tape round that. Once for good measure i even glued polystyrene inside the whole of the cardboard box. I was proud of that one!

I'm the kind of guy that hoards bubble wrap and foam and boxes though! Makes it cheaper to post [/quote]


Hehe anal.

[Delberthot]

The best thing to pack a bass with is a flat panel TV box cut to size. Normally a 40" one if its in a gig bag and a 46" one if its in a hard case.

The worst packaging I ever had was with a 1979 Rickenbacker 4000. It arrived in an old gig bag with a burst zip that didn't fasten at all. the seller held the bass in the bag with brown tape wrapped round it. How it survived I will never know.

[Mr. Foxen]

Wnever I've bought a bass on ebay and expected postage, I've sent a set of instructionson packing it. Basically, I use the 'I'm totally cool with you unbolting the neck if you are happy doing that' and if they aren't they'll be glad enough of some packing tips, licke slacken the strings and cover the machine heads in their own box. Have recently added don't used shredded paper or crumbled polystyrene as a packing material, as I got one in a gig bag delivered to work in a box, and figured it would be easier to take on the bus in just the bag. Spent my whole break tidying that up.

[tauzero]

I bought a BSX Flip electric upright bass, which is tripod-mounted and lives in a long thin gig bag. The seller just stuck the EUB and tripod into the bag, without taking much care about the separating bit of padding, stuck a label on the bag, and sent it like that. I don't know whether the 2p-sized dent in the body was down to that or pre-existing.

Mrs Zero works for a firm which sells bespoke cardboard boxes as a sideline, so I get decent boxes made up. I also keep bubble-wrap from stuff that I buy, and bits of expanded polystyrene which are good for supporting necks. I did send one bass out in a hard case wrapped in brown paper - buyer told me the bass had arrived intact but the case, a reasonably good wooden one, hadn't survived the experience too well. I did offer to put in a claim against Parecelfarce but he told me not to bother.

I've had five Tsai basses from Vietnam, one in a hard case, all the rest in gig bags, and they've all survived the experience quite happily. It seems very much the luck of the draw.

[ialma]

Looks like there is a god for bass players.
I had three PAINTINGS sent from england.
The artist sent the three wrapped in bubble wrap and paper and through regular mail.
No carto, nothing rigid. Imagine three large boxes in the containers of the standard mail...
Of course one painting was ripped, the other had an incision on it.
Idiot, ah, so idiot...


[quote name='Delberthot' post='307573' date='Oct 16 2008, 08:18 AM']The worst packaging I ever had was with a 1979 Rickenbacker 4000. It arrived in an old gig bag with a burst zip that didn't fasten at all. the seller held the bass in the bag with brown tape wrapped round it. How it survived I will never know.[/quote]

Edited November 17, 2009 by ialma

[john_the_bass]

I bought a guitar a few years ago that arrived in an unpadded gig bag with a hand written label attached with two bits of tape that was hanging off. I've had a couple turn up in cases that had just been taped up and labelled. My 335 arrived ingeniously wrapped and rather well protected - the case had been wrapped up in lots and lots and lots of bubble wrap and then the whole thing wrapped up in several layers of that weed suppressant stuff you stick in your garden if you want to put chippings down. It was actually very well protected and something I later reused to send a couple of cheap cases.

[Marky L]

It really does amaze me how completely thick some people are when it comes to this sort of thing. Presumably they have never had something sent to them thrown in a brown paper bag with illiterate scribble on the front for an address. Either that or they are looking for a few extra quid in over priced P&P.

I always send an email when I buy something to ask the seller to really package it well as we have a really bad post office here who are very careless and stuff gets damaged if not packed well. The postie here as actually really good.. but it's handy to thrown in a bit of bull!