Whenever you’re shipping something in a cardboard carton or box, you want to be confident the contents are secured and will reach their destination as undisturbed as the day you packed them. Before you reach for that standard packing tape, consider why staplers are better than tape.
Staples Are Tamper Resistant
Anyone who attempts to open a box secured with staples will leave clear evidence of tampering behind—removing a staple from the cardboard flaps of a container will leave puncture holes that are telltale signs someone has opened the box. Ripping a stapled box open will tear the box and render it useless, so if a thief rips into it to reveal the contents, the box won’t help the crook carry off the goods. When a thief compromises a carton, intrusion will be detectable immediately, and thieves know that—staples are a deterrent. Ripping into a stapled carton is more trouble than it’s worth for the sticky-fingered types who prefer a quick lift and a fast getaway.
When a stapled package reaches its destination safely, the recipient can use packing tape to re-close it and use it for storage around the house, but to get the box to them safely in the first place, staples are better than tape.
Staples Hold in Bad Weather
Heat, humidity, and cold all can affect the adhesiveness of some kinds of tape. A staple will hold even when it gets wet, and even when the cardboard it is securing gets soggy. Tape, on the other hand, may lose adhesion when exposed to varying weather conditions. If you know your carton will travel through extremes of heat, cold, rain, snow, or humidity, staples are the best choice. Some are galvanized for protection in various weather conditions, but all staples will hold better than tape through volatility in temperature and moisture levels.
Staples Take Up Far Less Space
Thousands of staples take up far less room than cartons full of packing tape. Even if your operation uses several staplers for closing cartons, the staples that fill them are far easier to store than rolls of tape. Think of it this way: how much space would you need to store enough tape to close 1,000 cartons? Now, how much space would staples for those cartons consume? Carton staples may come in boxes of up to 20,000—that’s in one carton of stapes.
Staples Preserve Your Branding
Careless taping can obscure your brand, even if the tape is transparent, because the logo under the tape can get ripped off when your customer removes the tape. Staples secure cartons neatly where they close and take up very little space on a part of the carton where your branding isn’t likely to appear anyway. Staples are useful for labeling, also, for the same reason. Keeping your branding intact from your carton’s point of origin to its destination keeps people thinking about your product—not about how they can’t tell what company supplied what’s inside.
Just as you would use a slap stapler for roofing or carpet pads, use a carton stapler and the right type of carton closing staples to secure boxes and heavy cardboard crates.