When you need to ship LPs, you want to take care to ensure that they don’t get damaged along the way. The simplest approach is to get some LP mailers and send your records that way, but while you’re looking for where to buy record mailers, you want to stop and consider a few more things. Especially if you’re sending more than one record at a time, there are three specific considerations that can make or break your shipping plan.
Don’t Let Them Shift
This is packing 101. If the contents inside of a box or mailer can shift within that packaging, they can damage themselves. It’s easy to think about a shipping truck taking a turn or suddenly stopping and the contents inside of a box all smash against each other.
So, the key to packing is to secure everything so that everything in the box moves as one, solid unit. If you do that, the box can properly defend your LPs, and your risk of seeing damage in transit goes down considerably.
Pack So They Can’t Scratch
Obviously, it’s bad for vinyl records to get scratched. If you pack so that your contents cannot shift inside of a box, that helps, but you need to make sure you pack the LPs with soft materials that can’t create scratches in the first place.
Packaging foam rolls are your best friend for this part. You can get a roll and stuff the box with the soft material. There should be a layer in between any records that are stacked together. From there, you can use the foam to ensure the contents fit tightly inside the box. This is just as true if your LP mailers hold more than one record each.
Think About Temperatures
Lastly, it’s easy to ignore temperatures, but vinyl records are vulnerable to major temperature changes. Think about the time of year and the route that your records will take in transit. If they are at risk of hitting extremely hot or cold temperatures, then you need to insulate the package as much as possible.
Fortunately, soft packing materials are also good heat insulators, so packing thoroughly helps a lot. If you’re concerned enough, you can consider climate-controlled shipping. It costs more, but it guarantees that your records won’t be damaged by extreme temperature changes.
If you flesh out these ideas, then you’ll be in great shape. You can send as many or as few records as you need to, and you can trust that all of them will arrive safely. Still, it’s also worth considering shipping insurance. No matter how careful you are, the shipments are ultimately out of your hand, and no packing strategy can prevent shipping errors. If your package is lost or if the entire shipping vehicle is damaged, it could ruin your day. Shipping insurance at least gives you some level of compensation.
