Selling printed, labeled or mixed gaylords

Print is cosmetic

A gaylord printed with a past supplier's name or stuck with shipping labels is Grade B at worst; the strength rating does not depend on print. Buyers packing for internal use do not care, and buyers who want a plain box for retail can ask for one by grade.

Mixed lots

Mixed means different footprints, wall counts or bottom styles on the same dock. Mixed loads are read by what decides use: footprint first, wall count second, bottom third. Give the count of each type: "30 of 48 x 40 triple wall, 12 of 48 x 48 four-wall, partial bottoms with slip sheets." A tally is better than a total.

What to leave out

• Boxes with food or chemical residue
• Wet or waxed board
• Anything that held regulated, hazardous or medical material; this site does not handle it
• Boxes that are UN-marked: a used box is not UN-rated unless certified

Send the tally with a sell request. The grades guide helps you sort.

Describing a mixed lot

A mixed lot is described by listing its parts, not by averaging them. "Forty boxes: twenty-five 48 x 40 x 36 triple wall, ten 48 x 48 x 36, five octabins, mostly Grade B" can be sorted and priced. "Forty assorted gaylords" cannot. If the mix is too varied to list, group it by footprint and give a count for each group.

Old labels and markings

Shipping labels, hazard diamonds and carrier barcodes come off easily or can be covered, and a buyer who re-fills the box usually relabels it anyway. The one marking that matters is a hazard statement about what the box last carried: if the box held a regulated material, say what it was in the request.

Sorting a mixed lot yourself

You do not have to sort a mixed lot before you ask, but a rough sort pays off. Group boxes by footprint first, since footprint decides who can use them. Within each footprint, split by wall count, and mark any with damaged flaps. Five piles of eight boxes are easier to describe and place than forty boxes in a heap. If sorting is impractical, photograph the heap from two sides and describe the biggest group.

Cosmetic is not structural

Faded ink, a company logo and an old shipping label do not weaken a box. Water stains, soft corners and crushed walls do. When you describe printed boxes, say which kind of mark you mean, because "marked" can cover either.