PCA Forums

Parts arrived today from Amazon for a PC I'm building for a friend in South Florida who does Blender 3D rendering work, and has a pretty lame 6 year old PC right now.

Everything was just thrown in the WAY too big box with minimal packing. Except for the DVD burner, all of it was well packed inside it's own factory box, so no big deal.

But the DVD burner, just in a plastic bag, and floating around loose at the bottom of the box? That's just moronic.

It probably works, but I didn't even bother testing it. I requested a replacement. No way I'm installing that in someone's PC.

Jesus...don't people know how to package delicate electronic items?

I swear that Amazon vacillates between over-packing and not even caring.

Well, from what I read, the packer has little choice, and this is what leads to this.

The software that manages everything tells packer, based on what's in the order, the size of the box and the amount of packing material to use. He can't just use as much as he wants without requesting an override, and then he has to type an explanation. This all takes time, and these people are under time pressure. It's easier just to do what the software tells you, even if it's obvious that there should be more packing material.

It usually works out since most items are in their own boxes from the factory.

I doubt the guy packing this knew anything about electronics and thus had no idea that burner should have been packed better. For that matter, Amazon shouldn't be storing those drives on a shelf in just a plastic bag. They should have SOME kind of packing to protect them. What if they fall off the shelf?

There's also the cost of the goods, chances of damage during shipping and the cost of better packing that's factored in. It's why sometimes you order something, you don't like it or there's something wrong with it and they send you a new one and tell you to do whatever you want with the original one. Real story, friend orders this massive bathroom vanity from Wayfair, takes like 3 guys to move it. First one arrives with the minor damage. Wayfair sends them a 2nd one and tells them to keep the first one. Sometimes it's just not worth shipping something back. I consult with a company that sells a lot of home/office furniture so I see how much this shit costs vs what it retails for.

sad really . not built or worked on a desktop in what seem like a decade. in my mind I still think of Newegg as a go to for parts.