Ridiculously large box for a memorycard..

[ErikTheNorwegian]

I
 

[dexters_lab]

had something similar a long time ago in the early 1990s, we received a box about big enough for a old style PC desktop case, UPS priority shipped from IBM somewhere in the USA to the UK.

Deep inside several layers of poly chips was a small box that contained one single 3.5" floppy disk, which it turned out we didn't actually need

[dr.diesel]

You sure it wasn't packaged by the US government?  Nobody else could possibly be that inefficient...

[mariush]

Some companies send to much stuff they have contracts with dhl/ups etc to pay by weight or number of pallets of shipped stuff ... volume of each package is less important.

It's better to ship it in a box instead of an envelope... they probably already have shipping contracts and a cheaper shipping fee for packages (and not envelopes).
Envelope could be crushed under heavier packages. Envelope could fall off a conveyor belt or get pushed off by larger packages.
As for size, it doesn't make sense to stock various cardboard packages so they probably took a stock box they had around and just used it - it makes no difference to them price wise.

[PA0PBZ]

I agree, but for this you will need some magical pallets:

or number of pallets of shipped stuff ... volume of each package is less important.

[alm]

What's unusual about this? I've seen pieces of paper with license keys shipped like this. Not sure if the paper itself was ESD dissipative, but at least it was well protected.

[_Sin]

This is Dell, shipping a bunch of CR2032 batteries:

[bitwelder]

What's unusual about this? I've seen pieces of paper with license keys shipped like this. Not sure if the paper itself was ESD dissipative, but at least it was well protected.

Case in point, HP: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/hp_packaging/   
(check also the other cases reported by ElReg on the 'Aboxalypse now' saga)

[Stonent]

HP sent a bag of screws for a server to us once in a box that big but there was a smaller one inside.

[alm]

I buy a lot on Ebay, and never se the Chineese do this..
They use letetrs for this kinda small stuff.. maybee they got something to learn us..

The volume of packing tape the Chinese tend to use is approximately the same as the size of that Agilent box, however.

Case in point, HP: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/hp_packaging/   
(check also the other cases reported by ElReg on the 'Aboxalypse now' saga)

I've never seen it that bad. But unless that cardboard has a metal foil layer inside, this packaging lacks an ESD shielding bag. Meaning that I could zap the paper right through the cardboard box.

[Stonent]

lol

Sounds about right. I get the very same thing.

I had two SOT-23 6-pin chips arrive in the post once, they came in a box that was a foot long and about 4 inches square. Talk about wasting resources!!!

Electronic component suppliers have got to be one of the biggest wasters of all.

I attended a meeting at a former employer on company waste a few years back. One of the products that we made was contact lens solution and they said that many customers had complained that the box was much bigger than it needed to be for the product inside, and while they agreed, the problem was the production line that the product came down was used for a dozen other products and since the grabber device only needed the bottle top to be the same size, they could use any bottle they wanted but when it came to changing the box size, a lengthy process was involved that required taking the line down for several days to reconfigure it and wasn't cost effective. They also had to reconfigure the machinery that gathered the product boxes and put them into cases since a smaller case would be needed.

It was just one of those things that makes more sense when you can see it from the production side.

[tom66]

I ordered a slim form factor desktop PC (media centre type) from Maplin once -- they shipped it in a box which would fit a fridge in, FedEx express and all...

[peter.mitchell]

I ordered some solder paste for digikey about a week ago, came in a massive box, in the box was the standard receipt/invoice, some of their mesh-cardboard packaging, then a huge foil insulated bag with 4 ice/freezer pouches in it, inside that bag, there was another,with another 4 pouches, then inside that was another foil bag with the solder paste and 2 more pouches, both which were still very very cold after 3 days!