My Dream Date With The ULINE Shipping Catalog

It’s been really hot here in San Francisco this week. I came home early today to an empty house and found the latest ULINE Shipping Supply Specialists catalog waiting for me in my mailbox. It’s got a seductive cover, enticing me with HOT, DO NOT DOUBLE STACK , RECEIVED, THIS END UP, and EXPLOSIVE stickers receding into space just like the opening text crawl from Star Wars.

I casually flip open the booklet to page 209 where I find this thing. For a mere $595 I can order the “ORGAPACK” Combo Tool. I have no idea what it feels like to use this thing but I will have to get together with some GRIPPER SEALS to find out.

Page 17- 10′ Telescoping Boxes. Page 120 – Shrink Tunnel (superior Italian design!) Page 261- Vinyl Strip Door Kits. Page 211- Poly Strapping Kits. Page 276 – Latex Finger Cots!

This catalog reads like a fantasy play dungeon for the shipping supply enthusiast. Besides all the wacky industrial items it has been the cheapest and speediest resource for packaging and shipping supplies for nearly every project I have encountered recently. They have same day shipping so your purchase arrives within days.

This is a great family owned company based in Chicago and run by by Dick and Liz Uihlein.

A great website for pricing shipping costs

Red Roller contributed some great schwag (cool tape measures) to an issue of Valleyschwag and I never really looked over the website until recently. It is simple to use and an excellent resource for cost comparison analysis amongst the major shipping companies. The easiest way to explain it is they treat shipping packages similar to what Hotwire does for traveling. You enter where you are and what you want to send and RedRoller gives you a list of the different companies that will ship it, how long it will take, and how much it will cost. You can decide on a method, pay for it, print your labels, and arrange for pickup all through your RedRoller account. It seems to be best suited for larger packages, but this is an amazing resource.

Welcome to the world of problem free shipping

OK, so maybe not live animals.

But I will gladly navigate the treacherous waters of the US Postal Service, UPS, Fed EX or DHL to put your merchandise safely and quickly into your customers’ hands. Back in the day when I worked for a variety of non-profit arts organizations I often was the one mailing the grant materials on the day they were due, at the last possible minute, the fate of the organization riding on this potential foundation money to keep it afloat one more year- you could feel the anxiety around the office, everyone freaking out that I might not make it it time to have it properly posted by the deadline….After a few harrowing deadlines, I developed a strategy – I had a notebook with the address and closing time of every post office within a 50 mile radius of the arts center and home, as well as UPS, FedEx etc…The grant writer and I used to joke about starting a service for non-profits called the “Funding Fairies” – we would have really fast motorcycles and drive around to all the non-profits on grant deadline day, collecting everyone’s grant proposals and getting them mailed in time… So, knowing where the super secret post office is that stays open till 9 PM even on a Saturday gives me that edge to get the job done well.