Moving into a new home can be an extremely stressful time. Finding the right house, price point, and location is daunting work in itself. The added stress of packing up your life at one place and moving it to another can be incredibly overwhelming. Since I have so much experience in moving from one place to another, I’ve put together a few tips that will help you as you transition from your current home to the new one. 

The first tip for moving into a new home is to do a complete walkthrough of said home. There is no better time to search for undisclosed issues or problems with the house than when it is completely empty. So before you begin to move all your stuff in, make sure that you have gone through and checked all parts of the house. It might be helpful in seeing if all the agreed-upon renovations and repairs have been made by the previous owner or landlord before moving all your furniture and other belongings into the home. 

Another tip might be more valuable before you have moved all your belongings out of your current home. By this, I mean: make sure to keep your stuff organized as you pack. Many people end up losing valuable and loved possessions as they transition into a new home because they did not keep their belongings organized. Label all shipping boxes or containers that are filled with your items, and make sure you know what is going where. The last thing you’d want is to find out that not all of your stuff made it to the new home. When I was younger, I remember moving with my parents and siblings to a new home across the country from our current one. After everything was said and done, it turns out that we had forgotten a few boxes of things in our old home and had to pay friends and family in the area to ship them over to us via UPS. This was not a fun experience and made for a more complicated moving process. Don’t be like my family or me; stay organized instead.

There are many questions to ask yourself when moving homes and many decisions to be made after the house is bought. To start, it’s important to identify if you are going to hire professional packers or are planning to do it yourself. In addition, you can save money if you are careful and intentional with how you pack your belongings. Use shipping boxes that are of an appropriate size to fit the proportions of their contents and try not to waste space. Also, make use of packing supplies like bubble wrap to ensure proper cushioning for your fragile items. Knowing your moving budget is helpful in identifying where you are going to be spending your money and which things would be more cost-effective for you to do it yourself. 

Packing your items in a specific order is also helpful. By packing things that are already in storage, like off-season clothing items or books, you can start packing much earlier and get ready to move before you start to pack your everyday things like kitchen appliances and such. It is also possible to ship your car if you don’t have enough driving hands to bring it along with the other moving vans or trucks.

Let’s face it; running any kind of business in today’s world is tricky. Worrying about taxes, laws and regulations, marketing and advertising, assets, and liabilities, and employee wages and salary payables can be a huge stress on any business owner. Not to mention the added complications that come from running a business on a global scale. Issues related to shipping costs and transportation of goods can create even more stress for an entrepreneur like yourself. That’s why I’ve put together a short list of important shipping supplies that will be helpful in reducing your stress levels that come from shipping and handling your products. What’s more, hopefully, these supplies will help you cut costs that are created through mismanagement of your purchases and inventory. If you’re planning on international shipping, I highly recommend you take a gander at this list. It is super important that your customers are receiving their products in a timely manner and without product damages or losses. 

Corrugated boxes are insanely helpful for any business that deals on an international level. These are among the most sought-after products in the world of eCommerce shopping. ECommerce has been at an all-time high due to recent causes from the pandemic. Consequently, you need to make sure that you are giving your customers the best experience as they order your products from around the world. We all can remember back to a time where we ordered a package online that we just could not wait to receive in the mail. For me, it was a desktop gaming computer that I ordered with my tax return one summer. I was super excited to receive my computer in the mail, and I remember being extremely worried that it would show up at my door being damaged or lost in shipping. However, I got my computer in great condition and enjoyed countless hours playing League of Legends and Warframe, my two favorite video games. Anyways, boxes can make a huge difference in the overall online shopping experience for your customers. Corrugated boxes provide sturdy packaging for fragile items and make the unboxing experience better for the consumer. Make sure to choose the smallest possible box for your product in order to get a snug fit and save on shipping costs!

Bubble wrap and other cushioning materials are also shipping supplies that every eCommerce business must have on hand. I’m not kidding when I say this stuff works! It comes in handy for giving extra cushion to your products and ensuring that nothing is damaged or lost during transit. A word of caution – do not fill your packages with too much bubble wrap, as this will increase the overall weight of your package and increase the shipping cost. My favorite part of bubble wrap, though, is the way it pops when you play with it. As a kid, I used to love it when my family received bubble wrap in the mail, and I can spend a good amount of time relieving stress through bubble wrap! 

Packing tape is also a great way to tightly secure the contents of your packages. It would be a darn shame if you went through all the trouble of building and producing your product, getting an order from your website, just to have it all fall out of the box during transit.

When talking about shipping boxes, there are many different kinds of boxes.  If you are a shipping company, whether that is a small eCommerce business or a big company, you will have the need for a kind of box for shipping. The few types we are going to look at are cardboard boxes, wooden boxes, and plastic boxes. Each of these kinds of packages has its own benefits and downfalls, which we are going to take a look at. The common standard for shipping containers is a cardboard box. If you are a company that deals in large equipment or heavy machinery, then you may be familiar with wooden boxes as these provide better support for those big parts compared to a cardboard box. 

Cardboard boxes are the gold standard when it comes to shipping items, and rightfully so. These boxes are made from paper which is a relatively cheap material to produce, although it does hurt the environment. These boxes can easily be mass produced due to their low cost of making. Cardboard boxes have a significant effect that allows for them to repel water before soaking it in. This is good as it will ensure the product inside is free of damage when it arrives at the customer’s desired location. Cardboard boxes are also quite sturdy. This allows for any kind of product to be placed inside of it unless it is very heavy; then it is recommended and more safe to go with a wooden box. 

Speaking of wooden boxes, these are an excellent and effective method of transportation. These boxes are generally made around the product being shipped. The good thing about these boxes is that they are very sturdy and can house almost anything. Also, because they are so sturdy, they can be easily stacked on top of each other, which will reduce in the space they take up, thus making them more easy to store. Most of the time, these boxes are used to ship large items like machinery. Wood is an easy material to access, but it hurts the environment more than the production of cardboard because it requires wood and not sheeted wood that makes paper.  

The final box for shipping is plastic boxes. These boxes are not seen as often because of their high price. These boxes also require fossil fuels to make like crude oil, and that drastically hurts the environment as it is slowly reducing the number of fossil fuels available. These boxes are pretty sturdy, much like wooden boxes but not to that level. The good part about these boxes is that they can be reused as much as possible until they get a break in them. A break in the box would require it to be retired or melted down to make a new one as it has lost its structural integrity. 

In my opinion, cardboard boxes are the best when it comes to shipping boxes. I say this because not only have they been used for a very long time but they are the most cheap to make. Not only are they the most inexpensive to make they also do not hurt the environment as much as the previously mentioned ones. The good thing about all of these boxes is that they can be made from recycled materials, which has less of an impact on the environment. 

When it comes to choosing the right kind of shipping supplies, there are so many different things to think about. The types of fillers to keep items safe and boxes to ship those items and so many different kinds of each can be tough to determine the best materials for sending your products. For a start, you need to be thinking about the products you have to ship. If your company deals in small items, you should be able to get away with using just the envelopes with bubble wrap on the sides. This could be an effective choice and a money saver as these supplies are relatively cheap. 

There are many different types of packing materials, and it can be hard to figure out what one is the best for you. One of my favorites is bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is an excellent kind of packing material because it provides the greatest protection for an item being shipped. It also has an anti-static effect that is very useful when shipping electronics. Another great kind of shipping material is packing peanuts. These peanuts are easy to work with as all you need to do is put a small layer on the bottom of the box you are using. After placing the item in, fill it with more packing peanuts, and that’s all. The one downfall this material has is that it can create a bit of a mess. Sometimes the tiny bits of foam can get into the shipped item.

After choosing the kind of packing material, you need to determine the sort of box or shipping container you are going to use. Cardboard boxes are an excellent choice and can be gotten for an affordable price. Most of the time, these boxes can be bought in bulk. Buying in bulk means you generally get a lot of material for a small fee. I would recommend cardboard boxes and another product we will talk about later. Cardboard boxes are very versatile and offer a good amount of protection. They have the ability to repel water before absorbing it, thus protecting your items if they are left out in the rain. 

Another great kind of material for shipping is the envelopes with bubble wrap in them. This is good for smaller items like stickers or markers. To determine if this works best for you, you will need to take a look at what you are trying to provide to people. If the items at your business are smaller, then this would be a good shipping option. The buying of this material is also cheap. Much like cardboard boxes, you have the ability to buy these in bulk which will reduce on costs. If your business can solely rely on this material, then your shipping costs will be very inexpensive. 

With so many different kinds of shipping supplies, it can be challenging to determine which is the best for your company to use. The many different types of packing materials make it hard to choose the best way to keep your items safe in transit. The kind of box or packaging you use will depend on the things you are providing for purchase. If you are dealing in only small items, the bubble wrap envelope will be the best option for you as you will not need to take the extra step in buying a protective material to add to the package. If you are not then, I would suggest cardboard boxes with bubble wrap as both of these materials are very versatile and come in many shapes and sizes.