Originally Posted by
repechage
corrugated cardboard Does weaken with use. Account for that and reinforcement can mitigate the loss of strength.
a distributor will be shipping no doubt a number of bike boxes at one time, so that total group of boxes does help, a standard UPS delivery truck is not making a dozen bike pick up.
‘I don’t know where the numbers cross over now but way back, over 10 bikes at once would be where a shipment went cheapest by truck. I recall unloading those, made one wish there was a dock high loading dock.
I'm only sharing my experience with my LBS, nothing more. While they might get a shipment on 3 or 4 bikes on occasion, it is the exception, not the rule. The UPS/FedEx truck that delivers to them is not packed any different than the truck that delivers to me or you.
Also, corrugate on breaks down when it's structure breaks down. The one time shipping from the manufacturer to my LBS is not going to cause that, so I'm confident the second time when I ship, it's fine. Yes, one would hope when a seller ships they don't use a crappy box, but it is very apparent when a box is crappy. Again, this ain't rocket science, protect surfaces from rubbing, make sure nothing moves in the box. Catastrophic handling damage is the exception, not the rule.