HP Overpacks Just a Bit for Power Cord

[Terry Olaes]

Some bloke in Australia ordered a 10 ft power cord from HP and was quite surprised to see how it was packed when it arrived. You’d think he ordered a 2U server or something, judging by the size of the box and pallet. Those of you that complain about the way things are packed from online vendors should be careful: you just may get what you ask for.

 

[Jinto]

Haha saw that a couple days ago. Seriously wonder how much it cost HP.

 

[Mangudai]

Haha they really put it on a pallet? Amazon can be almost as bad.

 

[xrealm20]

That's just totally amazing -- guess that can happen with computerized shipping - the system just grabbed the box that the part was located in and shipped it.

 

[xrealm20]

(i hope that's the case because I cannot believe that a PERSON would ship a power cord inside that huge of a box and crate it...)

 

[Tolyngee]

Just for shits 'n' giggles, I'd file an RMA claim stating that the item was damaged in shipping...

(Or you could say the item wasn't even in the box(es)... that actually sounds plausible...)

 

[pxc]

I'm thinking that the order probably included other pallets (dell ships larger servers on pallets). Instead of shipping the cord separately, some clown may have decided to make sure the cord was not lost.

 

[Raiden911]

Do the deliver companies charge base on weight or size, or both?

 

[Freezebyte]

Do the deliver companies charge base on weight or size, or both?

Both, someones getting a firing

 

[Atl530i]

I guess HP did not want the pins on the plug to get bent....

 

[necrosis]

Delivered to one's apartment?

I would be pissed off to no end if that got delivered to my palace for something that small.

 

[dslrjunky]

was that from a 10 wheeler truck that dell deliver also? I can't seem to find that pic

 

[scobar]

Wow a bunch of crazies "I'd be pissed if that got delivered to my apartment".

I'd laugh my ass off!

 

[RadXge]

It is much harder for a kangooroo to steal a box when there is also a pallet...

 

[srangara]

Delivered to one's apartment?

I would be pissed off to no end if that got delivered to my palace for something that small.

Must be nice to live in a palace.

Looking at the state of that box, I certainly would think twice before ordering anything more delicate than a power cord.

 

[gwarren007]

Dont order 4 hd's for a raid 0 setup, you could never get it in the door!!! HAHA!!

good find.

 

[n1ce_hat]

It would have been hilarious if after all that work over-packing if it showed up damaged...

 

[HalifaxPete]

It would have been hilarious if after all that work over-packing if it showed up damaged...

or how about the wrong cord?

 

[mastercheeze]

Another funny item is the fact that he said he had to drag it into the elevator, out of the elevator, and into his apartment. Que?? Just open it in the lobby and throw the pallet into the dumpster. Perhaps not a lot of common sense in that part of the world.

 

[niconx]

Another funny item is the fact that he said he had to drag it into the elevator, out of the elevator, and into his apartment. Que?? Just open it in the lobby and throw the pallet into the dumpster. Perhaps not a lot of common sense in that part of the world.

Yea that's what I was thinking. I once had an 18 wheeler deliver a treadmill to my house and there was no way I was going to haul that 200lb box through the door and drag it all over the house so I opened the box on the sidewalk and took the pieces in. Incidentally there was nothing else in the 18 wheeler, I thought that was kinda funny.

 

[w1retap]

Reminds me of the stick of RAM I ordered from HP as a replacment RMA.

 

[siliconnerd]

Well it does look like a pretty long power cord. If only Newegg packed their harddrives like that, I would be happy.

 

[twofortyfreak]

RMA the cord, pack it in a small box, inside a bigger box, inside a bigger box, strapped and shrink wrapped to a pallet, nailed shut in a crate, inside a shipping container, filled with millions of packing peanuts, welded shut, and air dropped by a boeing c17.

that'll teach 'em

 

[gokdog]

We had one of our fiber SFPs fail at work, RMA's it and Brocade sent us a complete Silkworm 4100 with about a dozen SFP in it.

Not exactly the best use of their shipping dollars since they had all the documentation as it was an SFP not a fairly expensive fiber switch.

 

[xrealm20]

Reminds me of the stick of RAM I ordered from HP as a replacment RMA.

lol -- that's horrible... Guess the ram got there in one piece tho

 

[Oldie]

I would have been praying for an accidental shipment of laptops...and then been REALLY disappointed.

 

[siliconnerd]

I would have been praying for an accidental shipment of laptops...and then been REALLY disappointed.

I had an incident a few months ago where I received an email with tracking info from a company I had ordered speakers from several months earlier that made it look like they accidentally sent me a second set. Turns out that after watching the tracking for a week, it ended up being someone else close by with the same name.

 

[GilmourD]

Awesome! I'm going to be buying an HP laptop soon! I now have no worries of it getting damaged!

 

[Cube]

I ordered a monitor From HP and it arrvied by fedex or ups cant remember in nothing but it's retail box as protection

It was a semi big 25.5 inch monitor but even the 30 inch I got somewhere else was double boxed.

 

[drizzt81]

HP is well known for excessive packaging, El Reg has a whole 'section' devoted to overpackaging

 

[fam]

I work at a place that ships single replacement caterpillar pcs of glass and that even has us beat lol. We only put things on pallets if its over (roughly) 5'x4'.

Some people are wasteful. They could have had it laying around and needed to use it.

Who knows.

 

[westrock2000]

He's just mad cause he thought he hit the jackpot.

 

[AceGoober]

This isn't directly HP's fault. The 3rd party supplier is ripping off HP.

In a 10kg wooden pallet, directly from Inventec in Shanghai.

 

[Tolyngee]

This isn't directly HP's fault. The 3rd party supplier is ripping off HP.

Any chance they did it to try and keep the small item from getting lost in transit?

Bigger box, inside an even bigger box, strapped to a pallet...

Better not get lost!

 

[Blazestorm]

I've had some stuff like that from newegg... before they started using bubble mailers...

Like an SDHC card in a box by itself filled to the top with peanuts. box was a good size too, 8 x 4 x 12... heh...

 

[AceGoober]

It's possible considering the area where the package originates from. The company I work for ships a ton of items out of China. 99% go to Thailand while the remaining 1% ship to the U.S. We've never experienced any issues with small packages coming directly here nor have been overcharged for shipping.

Any chance they did it to try and keep the small item from getting lost in transit?

Bigger box, inside an even bigger box, strapped to a pallet...

Better not get lost!

 

[beowulf7]

LOL, but as an HPQ shareholder, this should piss me off.

 

[bbf]

A plausible explanation of why the power cord was shipped that way was posted to the original thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5235006&postcount=53

I've worked with HP's order and shipping process enough to know how this could have happened (people unfamiliar with the process would find it strange, but I do not). HP and its ODMs like Inventec often do bulk shipping, i.e. the notebook you ordered is often shipped in a larger pallet containing other orders as it is more cost effective to do so rather than have a shipment out every other day, especially to a small market like Australia. That's why you'll often see your orders completing production, but only shipped a few days later.

What I guessed happened in this case was they have this power cord order, but had nothing else to ship at that time to Australia and since they exceeded the maximum time to deliver, they just decided to put it into a box and ship it as the standard process would direct the workers to. Hence, why this is particularly amusing is because the pallet only consisted of my single order and nothing else, hence it was forwarded to me directly without being repacked at the local warehouse in Sydney.

It's the process that they have in place for shipping and distribution, and the workers are not to blame. They do not have the instructions to handle exceptions like this and for a big company like HP, apparently it is more costly to cater to exceptions like this than to let it fall apart in about 10% of cases.

 

[Aielman]

HP is well known for excessive packaging, El Reg has a whole 'section' devoted to overpackaging

I work in a fairly large data center that uses HP exclusively for the servers, so I've seen them do some pretty excessive packing for things like power cords before (although never a full pallet for a single one).

But the one that just floors me is this one, also on the Register. 17 boxes to "protect" 32 pages of a manual.

 

[leonemesis]

I was about to say that some employee is getting revenge on HP, lol