Tip Tuesday – Ship Shape

Even if you were able to resist the siren call of “Prime Day,” and the many other retail sales calling themselves “Black Friday in July,” it seems we’re all getting many more boxes of goods delivered directly to our homes, often on an almost daily basis.

Because of this, I encourage my clients to create some type of “Amazon area” or “shipping station” to prevent a pileup of boxes in their entryway. Ideally, this space is close to the door where shipments arrive.

If you want your shipping station out of sight, possible locations include the floor of a coat closet, under a skirted table, or in a mudroom cupboard. Even a dedicated bench or large basket out in the open will create a clear “zone.” Keep a retractable blade nearby to open boxes easily, and some clear packing tape for returns.

I have a client who has many boxes delivered daily. She has come up with a simple system of marking things with sticky dots. No dot means it needs to be opened, a red dot means it’s ready to go back to the post office, a blue dot goes to UPS, and a yellow dot will get returned to the brick and mortar store. On each dot she marks the day it must be returned by. She does her returns in batches, saves time, and gets refunded for things that weren’t quite right or don’t fit.

Do YOU get enough packages to dedicate a space and start a system for processing them? Do you have any tricks (like the dots) that make it easier to manage the mail? Let us know!