Who’s Best For Shipping Supplies? Uline vs. Alternatives

Shipping supplies come in all shapes, sizes, and materials, and a number of online shipping supply dealers carry a wide selection. We looked at the most popular options and rising stars and decided to review Uline, Packaging Supplies, Shipping Supply, and eSupplyStore. These cover the range of options in terms of selection, pricing, shipping, and customer service.

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Best Shipping Supplies Source For Small Businesses: Uline

We chose Uline as the best source for shipping supplies for small businesses because they have the best selection of supplies for your order fulfillment needs. Plus, it has good base pricing with generous volume discounts, eight nationwide warehouses to ensure the fastest possible shipping, and highly praised customer service.

Best Shipping Supplies: Uline vs. Alternatives

	Uline	eSupply Store	Packaging Supplies	Shipping Supply
Selection & Product Search	Largest selection of shipping supplies. Best online search.	Wide assortment of shipping supplies. Good online search.	Basic selection of packaging supplies. Most difficult to search.	Wide assortment of shipping supplies. Good online search.
Prices on test products	Middle of the road on all products	Cheapest bubble wrap, pricey peanuts	Cheapest on boxes	Priciest boxes & bubble wrap
Shipping Cost (test order detailed below)	$43.59(1 day)	$61.30(2 days)	$57.84(2 days)	$55.23(3 days)
Returns	30 days	30 days	30 days	10 days
Customer Service	24/7 phone, email, live chat	Phone, email	Phone, email	Phone, email, live chat
Customizable Products	Many customizable items	None	None	Custom labels
	www.Uline.com	www.eSupply Store.com	www.Packaging Supplies.com	www.Shipping Supply.com

Best Shipping Supplies Source for Small Businesses: Uline

Uline has the best selection of shipping supplies, plus carries anything you could possibly need to run a shipping operation and warehouse. Of our four contenders, the Uline website was the easiest to use, followed by Shipping Supply and eShipping Store, with Packaging Supplies’ antiquated website taking last place for website ease-of-use.

Of the four, Uline carries the largest variety of boxes, mailers, envelopes, and fill materials, making it a great choice for ecommerce shipping. The Uline website’s “search by dimension” feature makes it very easy to navigate the huge selection and find exactly what you’re looking for. Uline also has the most custom branding options, including labels, retail bags, tissue paper and packing tape that you can special order with your company logo or other branding. This is ideal if you want to create a branded unboxing experience or launch a subscription box company. Of our 4, only Shipping Supply also offers customized labels, but none offers custom-printed shipping boxes.

As far as pricing goes, Uline is neither the cheapest nor most expensive, however, it has eight nationwide warehouses, so chances are there’s a Uline within one to two shipping days from your location. That helps cut down on shipping costs plus speeds up delivery times compared to our other contenders. In fact, most orders arrive in just one day to many US locations.

Uline is the only shipping supplies dealer to offer 24/7 customer support, and if you order in volume they assign you a service rep who can negotiate even lower prices for you. In researching reviews of Uline, even those who complained of receiving damaged or incorrect orders spoke highly of the customer service, saying they were personable and helpful, which has been our experience, too.

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In-Depth Review: Uline vs. Packaging Supplies, Shipping Supplies vs. eSupply Store

Shipping Supplies Selection & Product Search

All 4 or our top shipping supplies sources sell boxes, envelopes, bubble mailers, tape, labels, peanuts, bubble wrap, and plenty more. Of the 4, Uline has the best selection, with Shipping Supply being a close runner-up. Both offer many different styles of boxes and packing materials as well as a vast array of warehouse supplies.

Uline: Uline has the best selection of boxes and packing materials, including specialty polyurethane and polyethylene foam, which the others don’t offer. You can find jewelry and apparel boxes, as well as shopping bags and other retail store supplies. You can add custom branding to labels, packing tape, and tissue paper, unlike the other contenders, with the exception of Shipping Supply, which offers custom printed labels only. Uline also sells warehouse equipment, including shelving, scales, tables, and carts.

Of our 4, Uline has the most professional and user-friendly website, hands-down. It’s easy to navigate and has a very useful “search by dimension” feature, shown below:

Uline make it wasy to find the right sized boxes and other shipping supplies

Just type in the measurements of a box you need and it will pull up all boxes of that size. Along with standard medium and heavyweight boxes, they have lightweight boxes (if you want a more economical option), fold-up mailers, side-loading boxes, insulated boxes and more.

eSupply Store: eSupplyStore covers all the basics as well as warehouse equipment and fixtures. They offer boxes in over 600 dimensions, so if you have to find something very specific, your best bet might be eSupplyStore.

Shipping supplies - PackagingSupplies.com

Packaging Supplies: Packaging Supplies covers all the basics: boxes, mailers, supplies and filling materials. While they have many dimensions of boxes, there’s no easy way to sort through them or quickly search for a specific size on their website.

Shipping Supply: Like Uline, Shipping Supply has a wide selection of boxes and shipping supplies as well as warehouse equipment and furnishings and offers a selection of custom labels. It also has a handy “search by dimension” feature, though it’s not as streamlined as Uline’s search.

Shipping Supplies Prices

We compared the prices of our 4 contenders across a variety of common shipping supplies such as padded envelopes, boxes and mailers, and packing materials. There’s no clear cheapest-across-the-board winner when it comes to shipping supplies, so it’s a good idea to price-shop to find the cheapest supplier for your specific needs.

Here’s how our 4 contenders stack up in a price comparison of 5 common shipping supplies.

Shipping Supplies Quick Price Comparison

	Uline	eSupply Store	Packaging Supplies	Shipping Supply
Kraft Bubble Envelope 6”x10”	$0.16	$0.12	$0.18	$0.14
Small White Mailer Box 11x8x4	$1.17	$0.65(closest match 12x6x4)	$0.85	$1.24
Average Shipping Box14x14x10	$1.13	$1.20	$1.10	$1.17
Recycled Peanuts20 cu. ft. bag	$29	$60	$37.10	$38.58
Small-cell Bubble Wrap1’ by 175’ Roll	$11.25(min 4 rolls)	$8	$10	$35.12(min 4 rolls)

Uline: Uline is middle of the road on box prices, but they have the cheapest bagged peanuts of our 4.

However, if you buy in volume, Uline offers generous volume discounts and ships from 8 nationwide locations, which can make them the cheapest supplier with the fastest delivery, depending on your needs.

eSupply Store: eSupplyStore’s Prices are on the lower end across the board except for our 14x14x10 box and peanuts, where they are the most expensive of the 4. They do have the cheapest bubble wrap of our 4 contenders.

Packaging Supplies: Packaging Supplies has the lowest box prices out of the gate and very low-cost bubble wrap, bet the second-most-expensive peanuts. Shipping is actual UPS rates which can be significantly higher than others depending on where you’re shipping to. In our test order, it was the second-highest of our 4 and negates their box pricing advantages.

Shipping Supply: Shipping Supply has the highest or nearly the highest prices on all test items except bubble mailers. On these, they are the second-to-cheapest.

Shipping Costs

Shipping costs add up fast with bulky shipping supplies. If you order in small batches, shipping can easily double your costs since these orders ship via UPS or FedEx ground. If you ship regularly, you can save money on shipping supplies over time if you order in bulk to take advantage of freight discounts vs regular ground shipping.

All 4 provide real-time shipping estimates online before you ever enter your payment information or complete your sale, so you always know what you’re paying up-front. Here’s a look at our shipping costs on a test order.

Shipping Supplies Shipping Cost Comparison

Test Order:75 14x14x10 boxes shipping to Houston, Texas	Uline	eSupply Store	Packaging Supplies	Shipping Supply
Shipping Cost & Delivery Time to our location	$43.59(1 day)	$61.30(2 days)	$57.84(2 days)	$55.23 (3 days)

Uline: Uline has 8 nationwide locations so most deliveries take just 1-2 days to arrive. Plus, having that many locations makes its shipping the cheapest in our side-by-side comparison.

eSupply Store: eSupplyStore’s real-time rates came back with the priciest shipping on our test order. It’s located in Nebraska, so if you’re there or in a surrounding state, your shipping would be cheaper and faster.

Packaging Supplies: Packaging Supplies has the second-costliest shipping of our 4 contenders. Packaging Supplies also has several locations nationwide to cut down on shipping time and costs but didn’t beat Uline.

Shipping Supply: Shipping Supply is based in Wisconsin, but still had cheaper shipping rates than either eSupplyStore or Packaging Supplies, which have warehouses closer to our location. They still don’t beat Uline.

Order Returns

Everything with Uline is easy, including returns. All 4 contenders accept returns, but you will pay the return shipping unless they made a shipping error on your order. Because shipping supplies can be rather bulky, returns can cost more than your actual order, so keep that in mind when considering a return.

Uline: Returns are accepted within 30 days for full refund. RMA required.

eSupply Store: Returns are accepted within 30 days for full refund. RMA required. Returns not accepted for special Free Shipping promo items.

Packaging Supplies: Returns are accepted within 30 days, refund less 20% restock fee.

Shipping Supply: Returns are accepted within 10 days for full refund. RMA required.

Customer Service

Each of our 4 contenders offers both phone and email support, but Uline’s 24/7 customer service blows the competition away if you need fast answers at any time.

Uline:
Phone: 24/7
Email/Online: Form or regular email, plus Live Chat
Online reviews rate Uline’s customer support, shipping accuracy and delivery times very highly.

eSupply Store:
Phone: M-F, 8 am to 4 pm CST
Email/Online: Online form

Packaging Supplies:
Phone: M-F, 8 am to 5 pm EST
Email/Online: Form or regular email

Shipping Supply:
Phone: M-F, 9 am to 5 pm CST
Email/Online: Form or regular email, plus Live Chat

The Bottom Line

Between the wide selection, sleek website and praised customer service, we feel you’re likely to have the best shopping experience on Uline for packaging supplies. The cheaper and faster shipping options are the icing on the cake. But, if you need specific products, you can find cheaper shipping supplies with different suppliers, so always price-shop for your specific needs.

Plus, if you’re geographically close to one versus the others, actual shipping rates can make them the cheapest option.

Where do you get your shipping supplies from? Uline or another supplier? We’d love to hear who works best for you in the comments below.

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About the Author

Krista Fabregas