At a pack-and-ship counter, the customer pays retail carrier rates on whatever box the shipment goes out in. MVP Box® is a corrugated shipping box with pre-scored heights: the associate or the customer folds it down to the line just above the contents, in about one second, no cutting. Less box, less to pay for when the parcel bills by size.
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Packaging since 1952 · 3 U.S. patents on MVP Box · Third-generation family-owned · 847-541-7000
This page is about retail shipping counters: office-supply stores, shipping and mailing centers, and any counter where a customer walks up with something to send. It is not about a retailer’s employees packing the retailer’s own online orders; that is ship-from-store, and it has its own page.
Three things make the counter different. The customer is paying, at published counter rates, so dimensional weight shows up on their receipt rather than on a corporate freight invoice. The shipment is one-of-a-kind, so nobody can pre-size a box for it. And the box comes off a shelf behind the counter that holds a limited set of sizes, so the associate picks the nearest fit, and the customer pays for the difference in air.
A customer sets a shipment on the counter. The associate looks at it, pulls the smallest stock box it fits in, packs it with filler, tapes it, weighs and measures it, and quotes the price. If the contents are 4 inches tall and the smallest box that fits the footprint is 8 inches tall, the extra 4 inches are in the quote whenever the carrier bills that parcel by dimensional weight.
Two or three MVP Box sizes with a few score lines each cover the range that takes five or six fixed sizes on the shelf today, which matters behind a counter with limited storage.
Illustrative example, not a customer result
A shipment 12 by 12 inches across and 6 inches tall, weighing 3 pounds, goes out in a 12 x 12 x 12 stock box. Under a carrier that rounds each dimension up and divides by 139, the box calculates to 12.4 pounds and bills as 13. The same shipment in a 12 x 12 MVP Box folded to its 7-inch line calculates to 7.3 pounds and bills as 8.
What that difference is worth in dollars depends on the carrier, service and zone quoted at the counter. If the shipment were heavy enough that actual weight already exceeded dimensional weight, folding would not change the price at all, though it would still use less filler.
We built a counter calculator for this: pick the box, enter the height and the weight from the scale, and it shows billable weight at full height and folded, by carrier. Ask us for it when you talk to us about a program.
Talk to us about a counter program
Yes. The fold is one motion to a marked line, and the steps can be printed inside the lid. Where a counter has a self-service packing area, customers do it; where the associate packs, the associate does it.
No. Folding lowers the box’s dimensional weight. That lowers the price only when the parcel bills by dimensional weight rather than actual weight, and the amount depends on the carrier, service and zone. On a heavy shipment, folding changes nothing but the filler.
It’s a corrugated box. The associate measures it at its folded height and enters the dimensions the same way as any box. Nothing to integrate.
Typically two or three MVP Box footprints replace the mid-range of a counter’s stock sizes. Very small and very large shipments keep their own boxes. We work it out from your current counter box mix.
Call 847-541-7000 or email [email protected].
