How to buy used boxes without getting burned.

What you get.

• An honest grade. We don't upgrade Grade C to Grade B to close a sale.
• A real photo before the truck rolls. Stack count, pallet condition, the actual boxes you'll receive.
• An itemized invoice. Per-box, per-pallet, per-mile. Nothing hidden in a line called "handling."
• A return path. If a shipment isn't what we agreed on, we take it back. Period.

How a typical order flows.

Minimum order size.

We'll ship as little as a single pallet of boxes locally (~25 boxes) up to multiple truckloads of mixed inventory. Sub-pallet orders are possible but the per-box price climbs because the freight math gets ugly. Honest about it on the quote.

Payment terms.

New customers prepay or pay COD on the first order. Net-30 terms available after the second on-time transaction. We accept ACH, wire, business check, and major credit cards (3% surcharge on cards).

What we'll do for new customers.

1. Talk through your use case before quoting. A quick email exchange about what the boxes will carry, where they'll be received, and how often. Sets up a more accurate quote.
2. Quote within one business day. Itemized, per-SKU, with footnotes on any spec assumptions.
3. Photo the load before shipment. Always. You see what's coming before the trailer doors close.
4. Hold the price. Quoted price holds for 30 days. We don't re-price at confirmation.
5. Walk you through the BOL. First-time customers get a walkthrough of how to read our BOL and what the SKU codes mean.

The first-quote email template.

If you're reaching out for the first time and want to skip the back-and-forth, here's what to include in your first email. We can quote inside one business day from this.

• What you're shipping in the boxes (dry goods, liquid, etc.).
• Approximate weight per box.
• Footprint preference (or "48 × 40 standard").
• Height preference (or "whatever fits").
• Wall count preference (or "whatever works for the load weight").
• Lid required? Telescoping preferred?
• Pallet pairing? Wood, plastic, or no pallet?
• Grade target (A, B, or C).
• Quantity.
• Delivery city and state, dock window.
• Any timing constraint.

What we ship standard.

For most quotes, our default outbound configuration is:

• Triple-wall Gaylord, 48 × 40 × 36, Grade B, lidded (telescoping).
• Paired with a B-grade GMA wood pallet.
• Banded with PET strapping.
• Photographed against BOL.
• Loaded on our truck for local; partner carrier for distance.

About 70% of orders ship to this default. The rest are spec deviations: different footprint, different wall, plastic pallet pairing, or custom-build.

Inspection rights at receipt.

Once a load arrives at your dock, you have five business days to inspect and dispute any grading discrepancy. The process:

1. Photograph the load as received, ideally before unloading is complete.
2. Note any discrepancy on the BOL before signing if visible at receipt.
3. Email us within five business days with the dispute, the photos, and a count of disputed units.
4. We compare your photos against our outbound photos and reply within two business days.
5. If the grade is genuinely off, we credit or replace. If it's transit damage, we credit anyway and adjust the strap pattern for the next load.

Volume tier pricing.

We don't publish prices, but we do publish the volume tiers our pricing model uses. Larger volume = better unit pricing because the fixed inspection and dispatch costs amortize over more units.

Frequently asked.

Related reading.

• Standard Gaylord inventory
• Eight questions buyers ask about Grade B
• Five forklift tips for receivers
• Our grading rubric written down