Paul Stock of Astro Books of Montreal, Quebec saw Scott Walston's comments about Diamond's packing methods (see 'Scott Walston of Scott's Comics on Damaged Copies') and says that Diamond generally does an excellent job with packaging:

I have to take strong exception to Scott Walston's piece.  Let me start by giving my bona fides:

I've been a comics retailer since the mid 1980s.  Prior to that, I was a traffic manager in international freight, warehouse manager, and shipper.  I have designed corrugated boxes for multiple purposes.

Diamond, in my opinion, does an excellent job in packaging.  Scott criticizes the C400 boxes, but fails to mention that these are simply outer sleeves.  They are single wall, relatively lightweight, but they enclose two C200 cartons, which are both doublewall.  Effectively, on the sides, the comics are protected by three layers of flute and five boards.  That's extreme in itself.  On the top and bottom, the flaps add four layers of flute, eight layers of board.  These are not simply ECT42, the UPS limits for such are simply not applicable.

The boxes are heavy on purpose.  A heavy box might be dropped, but a lighter box will be thrown.  By making them heavier (and a rather unweildy shape), Diamond is reducing the likelihood that UPS personnel will be heaving them around, reducing the chances of impact damage.

The two-inch buffer suggestion is ludicrous.  It would enormously increase Diamond's packaging costs, which would presumably be passed on to us.  It would significantly increase the tare, and UPS charges just as much for shipping the package as it does the content.  Weight is weight.  On the other hand, it would no doubt reduce the claims against UPS due to mis-handling by their personnel.  Essentially, UPS wants to download the cost of their lax employee performance on us, and wants to charge us for it...

And of course, the environmental impact of UPS' suggestion is simply horrendous to contemplate.

As far as internal packing goes, I have issues with it.  I run 20-30 OSD lines a week.  Not pleasant, but I gather it's a tradeoff.  Although I'm an advocate of 'do it right the first time,' I realize that sometimes allowing a 'break and fix' can be cost effective.  The stress and time impact on multiple OSDs on the retailer can be quite oppressive, but I understand the 'fix' cost at Diamond is relatively small.  Doesn't hurt them, why should they care?  Are we going to shop elsewhere for X-Men?

By the way, Mr.Walston says '...different sized items are not packed to prevent sliding.'  I'm astounded at this.  Every week we recycle a densely-packed 12 cu ft container of stuffing taken from our 15 or so Diamond boxes.  If anything, I'd say that Diamond uses too much stuffing, as we've encountered a fair amount of damage to product as a result of stuffing being jammed in to prevent content shift.

I'm generally a strong critic of Diamond, but I do give credit where it's due.  They've put a lot of effort into packaging design and it shows, by virtue of the relatively small amount of damage that 'OOPS' manages to do.

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