The tube parcel

Lola has ordered a poster about a Japanese anime for her best friend's birthday. The problem is that posters, Cromalins, architectural plans, etc, are often packaged in a shipping tube. Rolling can be a lot more practical than folding, but it’s a lot less practical for sorting machines. Because tubes roll! And when they roll...

When a tube parcel is shipped, several problems arise.

It can roll, fall off the sorting machine conveyor and get damaged or end up in the recovery nets. This can lead to shipping delays, as these parcels are recovered when the machines are turned off by the maintenance team, once or twice per day, so possibly after the lorries leave or after the delivery rounds.

Also, because of the shape of the packaging, the postage label may be hard or impossible to read, so human intervention may be needed to route the parcel to the right destination.

Our recommendation for the perfect tube parcel:

Opt for a tube type of parcel that is square or triangular, or, if necessary, stabilise the tube using a shipping sheath for round tubes. Remember it should be more than 10 cm wide so the postage label and bar codes on it are flat and no information is cut off. As a reminder, the minimum label size is 10 cm x 15 cm.