How To Properly Pack Your Records For Shipping

I put together this tutorial with instructions for shipping vinyl records and LPs. Shipping records differ from shipping CDs because they are much heavier, and you must prevent damage because it devalues the collection. This page details how to avoid the most common issues I have learned when shipping record collections.

Choosing A Service

The best way to send vinyl records domestically is by USPS Media Mail. It’s a service from USPS for shipping books, records, CDs, etc. Sometimes, smaller town post office staff may ask you to verify what you are sending, so you do nothing wrong if you ship records, CDs, or books. You can also use UPS or FedEx; however, it will be more expensive, and the service isn’t better. For international, it will vary based on your country, but FedEx, UPS, or some regional facsimile exist almost everywhere. You can also use DHL, but it is very expensive.

Proper Packing

Records weigh roughly a pound a piece. 7″ singles weigh less, and a 180-gram double album is significantly more, but 16 ounces per LP is a good rule of thumb. If you are shipping 200 records, you are looking at around 200 pounds; 300 would be 300, 60 would be 60, etc. USPS media mail has a weight limit of 70 pounds so you can get a maximum of 70 LPs in one box, but you want to avoid this. It is best to go no higher than 50 pounds per box. You can use a bathroom scale to verify the weight if you don’t have a postage scale. Using more lighter boxes is better than stuffing one with 70. Heavy boxes get damaged more quickly when they are thrown around by handlers who do not want to deal with excessively heavy mail, which is understandable.

Double Boxing Is Key

Record labels and distributors use specialized packing to ensure inventory is not damaged when sent out. We want to emulate this at home. Ensuring the LP corners are not bent and records don’t fall out is what is most important. The only way to avoid this is by double-boxing. Put simply, you take the smaller box and put it inside a larger box that is stuffed with some paper or other material to absorb unwanted impact. If you pack them all in one box and hope for the best, it will spill 100% of the time, so the best way is to ship a box inside a slightly larger box.

You can buy 13-inch boxes at any moving business for $2-3 that fit records perfectly. You can purchase or find slightly larger 14-16-inch ones for the outer. The albums will fit snugly in the 13-inch box. Then, put the 13-inch box inside the bigger box and line it with newspaper, cardboard, or bubble wrap to prevent shifting, and you are good to go.

Don’t Skimp on the Tape

Lastly, you need to tape the outer box with as much packing tape as possible. When the inner box or boxes move around, they can easily break through the outer shell. Tape the outer box so much you might think you’ve put too much tape on it, and then keep going.

Summary

Shipping bulk records correctly is straightforward. The main things you are trying to avoid are:

The boxes opening and spilling the contents; thus, we use the box-in-box method.
Damaging the jackets by cramming too many in one box, thus we pack the albums into smaller 50-pound shipments to prevent damage.
Put plenty of tape around the outside box.

That’s about it. I hope this tutorial was helpful.