This article is definitely interesting but... what can we do about it? I don't think I've bought a box in years, even after moving a million times in the last 5 years. I generally cut down on...
This article is definitely interesting but... what can we do about it? I don't think I've bought a box in years, even after moving a million times in the last 5 years. I generally cut down on buying online now and when I do they usually use mailers instead because cheaper probs.
This article is likely uniquely not useful in terms of actionable items consumers can take, since for whatever reason they couldn't give an even incomplete list of shipping or ecommerce companies...
This article is likely uniquely not useful in terms of actionable items consumers can take, since for whatever reason they couldn't give an even incomplete list of shipping or ecommerce companies that use it. I get that it's a private company, but you couldn't at least say if Amazon uses them or not?
I'd honestly be kind of surprised if Amazon didn't have it's own channel for sourcing cardboard boxes. It's such a major component of their business they'd want to avoid losing as much to...
I'd honestly be kind of surprised if Amazon didn't have it's own channel for sourcing cardboard boxes. It's such a major component of their business they'd want to avoid losing as much to middlemen as possible. It'll add up.
After reading the article again I also doubt Amazon uses them. For one, they'd make a lot more than $712m a year in revenue if they were the primary supplier for Amazon. Also, there's no way any...
After reading the article again I also doubt Amazon uses them. For one, they'd make a lot more than $712m a year in revenue if they were the primary supplier for Amazon. Also, there's no way any journalist worth their salt wouldn't mention that juicy bit if it were true.
It reads to me like the $712 million figure is their personal income report, from 2018. It's not entirely clear to me how ProPublica got that information, but they are stating that their personal...
Uline’s core business — selling boxes — is so boring there’s an entire Simpsons bit devoted to its dullness. But tax records obtained by ProPublica show the company, which is privately held and does not publicly disclose financial results, has experienced an astonishing boom.
The Uihleins, who make the vast majority of their money from the company, reported around $18 million in income in 2002, according to the records. That rocketed fortyfold, to $712 million, in 2018. Thanks to the pandemic-induced online shopping surge, Uline has grown even more since.
It reads to me like the $712 million figure is their personal income report, from 2018. It's not entirely clear to me how ProPublica got that information, but they are stating that their personal income would likely be even more now because of the pandemic surge of online shopping. So they could be topping $1 billion in personal income annually. I think it's a bit hard to decipher just how much Uline is making past that, but it's clearly quite a bit.
I mean, people are different in terms of what they use and what they could change if they were motivated. Edit, I misunderstood the headline. They don't have a monopoly.
I mean, people are different in terms of what they use and what they could change if they were motivated.
Edit, I misunderstood the headline. They don't have a monopoly.
I have had my hands in logistics for a while, and I can tell you that Uline does not have a monopoly on cardboard boxes. Their boxes are actually fairly expensive so anyone who is buying any...
I have had my hands in logistics for a while, and I can tell you that Uline does not have a monopoly on cardboard boxes. Their boxes are actually fairly expensive so anyone who is buying any non-minor quantity of them is buying them from another manufacturer. For manufacturers and larger scale logistics operations they are probably going to get their boxes custom made for them complete with printed designs.
Uline's success is mainly from catering to small-to-medium businesses because they carry basically everything you need to run a logistics department. The number of SKUs they have is crazy. They probably have over 1000 different items if we limit it to corrugated cardboard boxes!
Uline is expensive for almost everything they carry. They lure people in with offering freebies and I have to remind people where I work that if they took the time to get it properly priced out...
Uline is expensive for almost everything they carry. They lure people in with offering freebies and I have to remind people where I work that if they took the time to get it properly priced out then they could save money on whatever consumable they are getting and buy that "free" item elsewhere and still pay less in the long run.
I'm a shipper with my company and I'm generally in charge of our supply of boxes. In recent years we started buying from Uline because they were a cheaper/more readily available option. I don't...
I'm a shipper with my company and I'm generally in charge of our supply of boxes. In recent years we started buying from Uline because they were a cheaper/more readily available option. I don't have any actual purchasing power and can do little other than ask that my purchasing department look into other vendors for boxes, but might you have any advice on how to approach that conversation beyond "Uline's political affiliations seriously skeeve me out"?
Honestly the company I work with still uses Uline because they work better for the small volume and low lead times. But if your company is dealing with large enough volumes and/or have the space...
Honestly the company I work with still uses Uline because they work better for the small volume and low lead times. But if your company is dealing with large enough volumes and/or have the space to hold excess packaging, you can lure them in with better pricing with another company, and that's the thing that you should hammer in hard. Do a bit of research on what your logistics depatment needs, get some quotes from other suppliers, and make a well reasoned case with whoever's managing purchasing.
I think one of the more major competitors out there is Oak Distributing. The last time I had to look up alternatives, I had a hard time finding them, honestly. I only found out about Oak because one of our suppliers were using them.
I'm also in charge of my company's shipping, at least for events. We hold a big conference and a much smaller conference every year. These are pallet-sized shipments with all of the electronic...
I'm also in charge of my company's shipping, at least for events. We hold a big conference and a much smaller conference every year. These are pallet-sized shipments with all of the electronic equipment, office supplies, swag, etc. For the big conference, we ship like 6 pallets of stuff. For the smaller one, 1 or 2 pallets.
We used to go around, uhh..."borrowing"...pallets from like Wal-Mart and other big box stores, until I realized we could buy inexpensive, lightweight, plastic pallets. For cheap. From ULINE. That started about 6-7yrs ago. We replace them every other year or so, since they quickly get damaged or even lost.
Then earlier this year I learned about ULINE. So I started looking around to see who I could buy from instead. After all, there are many companies selling plastic pallets. The problem is that the minimum order from other places tends to be like 25 pallets. We don't need 25 pallets, nor have space to store 25 pallets. With ULINE, we can literally buy one at a time if needed.
So if I can find a place that's willing to sell and ship in ultra low volumes, I'd be happy to make the switch on my behalf of my company.
Thanks. I misunderstood the headline, which came from editorial staff at Pro Publica. It would be nice if a friendly person with editiing rights could add the word likely in front of fueling....
Thanks. I misunderstood the headline, which came from editorial staff at Pro Publica. It would be nice if a friendly person with editiing rights could add the word likely in front of fueling.
That's true! I wish I could tell the retailers I buy from to use a certain company for shipping and certain packaging, even if i have to pay a bit more. Is this company a monopoly? I guess I'm...
That's true! I wish I could tell the retailers I buy from to use a certain company for shipping and certain packaging, even if i have to pay a bit more.
Is this company a monopoly? I guess I'm also not super familiar with shipping and logistics at all.
(thanks for the articles btw! Deffo an interesting read)
I don't think there's any indication Uline is a monopoly. It would be, uh, quite difficult to have a monopoly in producing cardboard boxes. Their revenue is also indicative of that; 712m is a lot...
I don't think there's any indication Uline is a monopoly. It would be, uh, quite difficult to have a monopoly in producing cardboard boxes. Their revenue is also indicative of that; 712m is a lot of money, in some sense, but it's also a speck of dirt relative to the entire US shipping market. There's no way they have a monopoly on all shipping material in the US and only make $712m a year.
The article never said that they were a monopoly either.
I swear there was a video posted here not long ago about International Paper producing a large portion of the cardboard boxes in the US, but I can't find it through a search. It almost made...
I swear there was a video posted here not long ago about International Paper producing a large portion of the cardboard boxes in the US, but I can't find it through a search. It almost made International Paper sound closer to a monopoly. (Edit: think I'm wrong about having seen it here, but this is the link to it, apparently International Paper supposedly makes 1/3rd of the cardboard boxes in the US)
In any case, it makes me wonder if Uline buys the boxes from someone like International Paper, or if they make their own boxes or what.
Also the $712 million a year reads to me like it's the owners' personal income, not the company.
Uline’s core business — selling boxes — is so boring there’s an entire Simpsons bit devoted to its dullness. But tax records obtained by ProPublica show the company, which is privately held and does not publicly disclose financial results, has experienced an astonishing boom.
The Uihleins, who make the vast majority of their money from the company, reported around $18 million in income in 2002, according to the records. That rocketed fortyfold, to $712 million, in 2018. Thanks to the pandemic-induced online shopping surge, Uline has grown even more since.
If you read it without the strikethroughed part, it is saying its their personal income, not the company's revenue.
I buy things from Uline on occasion for work, albeit very little, but this is news to me. Individually it won't make a difference when I shop elsewhere, but maybe raising awareness for other folks...
I buy things from Uline on occasion for work, albeit very little, but this is news to me. Individually it won't make a difference when I shop elsewhere, but maybe raising awareness for other folks could collectively do something.
Same owner who recently backed an amendment to the Ohio constitution to limit the ability for citizen led amendments to make it to the ballot. Billionaire backing effort to raise Ohio amendment...
Same owner who recently backed an amendment to the Ohio constitution to limit the ability for citizen led amendments to make it to the ballot.
Funnily enough, one of the main slogans for the "Yes" campaign was to "keep out of state money out of Ohio politics." (Spoiler alert, it was resoundingly voted down, so I feel good that he at least wasted $1M on this farce)
Someone make a list of companies that use these boxes, preferably in easily sharable and colorful infographic form. I'm ready to start the boycott and awareness campaign.
Someone make a list of companies that use these boxes, preferably in easily sharable and colorful infographic form. I'm ready to start the boycott and awareness campaign.
This article is definitely interesting but... what can we do about it? I don't think I've bought a box in years, even after moving a million times in the last 5 years. I generally cut down on buying online now and when I do they usually use mailers instead because cheaper probs.
This article is likely uniquely not useful in terms of actionable items consumers can take, since for whatever reason they couldn't give an even incomplete list of shipping or ecommerce companies that use it. I get that it's a private company, but you couldn't at least say if Amazon uses them or not?
I'd honestly be kind of surprised if Amazon didn't have it's own channel for sourcing cardboard boxes. It's such a major component of their business they'd want to avoid losing as much to middlemen as possible. It'll add up.
After reading the article again I also doubt Amazon uses them. For one, they'd make a lot more than $712m a year in revenue if they were the primary supplier for Amazon. Also, there's no way any journalist worth their salt wouldn't mention that juicy bit if it were true.
It reads to me like the $712 million figure is their personal income report, from 2018. It's not entirely clear to me how ProPublica got that information, but they are stating that their personal income would likely be even more now because of the pandemic surge of online shopping. So they could be topping $1 billion in personal income annually. I think it's a bit hard to decipher just how much Uline is making past that, but it's clearly quite a bit.
I mean, people are different in terms of what they use and what they could change if they were motivated.
Edit, I misunderstood the headline. They don't have a monopoly.
I have had my hands in logistics for a while, and I can tell you that Uline does not have a monopoly on cardboard boxes. Their boxes are actually fairly expensive so anyone who is buying any non-minor quantity of them is buying them from another manufacturer. For manufacturers and larger scale logistics operations they are probably going to get their boxes custom made for them complete with printed designs.
Uline's success is mainly from catering to small-to-medium businesses because they carry basically everything you need to run a logistics department. The number of SKUs they have is crazy. They probably have over 1000 different items if we limit it to corrugated cardboard boxes!
Uline is expensive for almost everything they carry. They lure people in with offering freebies and I have to remind people where I work that if they took the time to get it properly priced out then they could save money on whatever consumable they are getting and buy that "free" item elsewhere and still pay less in the long run.
I'm a shipper with my company and I'm generally in charge of our supply of boxes. In recent years we started buying from Uline because they were a cheaper/more readily available option. I don't have any actual purchasing power and can do little other than ask that my purchasing department look into other vendors for boxes, but might you have any advice on how to approach that conversation beyond "Uline's political affiliations seriously skeeve me out"?
Honestly the company I work with still uses Uline because they work better for the small volume and low lead times. But if your company is dealing with large enough volumes and/or have the space to hold excess packaging, you can lure them in with better pricing with another company, and that's the thing that you should hammer in hard. Do a bit of research on what your logistics depatment needs, get some quotes from other suppliers, and make a well reasoned case with whoever's managing purchasing.
I think one of the more major competitors out there is Oak Distributing. The last time I had to look up alternatives, I had a hard time finding them, honestly. I only found out about Oak because one of our suppliers were using them.
I'm also in charge of my company's shipping, at least for events. We hold a big conference and a much smaller conference every year. These are pallet-sized shipments with all of the electronic equipment, office supplies, swag, etc. For the big conference, we ship like 6 pallets of stuff. For the smaller one, 1 or 2 pallets.
We used to go around, uhh..."borrowing"...pallets from like Wal-Mart and other big box stores, until I realized we could buy inexpensive, lightweight, plastic pallets. For cheap. From ULINE. That started about 6-7yrs ago. We replace them every other year or so, since they quickly get damaged or even lost.
Then earlier this year I learned about ULINE. So I started looking around to see who I could buy from instead. After all, there are many companies selling plastic pallets. The problem is that the minimum order from other places tends to be like 25 pallets. We don't need 25 pallets, nor have space to store 25 pallets. With ULINE, we can literally buy one at a time if needed.
So if I can find a place that's willing to sell and ship in ultra low volumes, I'd be happy to make the switch on my behalf of my company.
Thanks. I misunderstood the headline, which came from editorial staff at Pro Publica. It would be nice if a friendly person with editiing rights could add the word likely in front of fueling.
@mycketforvirrad
@cfabbro
Done!
That's true! I wish I could tell the retailers I buy from to use a certain company for shipping and certain packaging, even if i have to pay a bit more.
Is this company a monopoly? I guess I'm also not super familiar with shipping and logistics at all.
(thanks for the articles btw! Deffo an interesting read)
I don't think there's any indication Uline is a monopoly. It would be, uh, quite difficult to have a monopoly in producing cardboard boxes. Their revenue is also indicative of that; 712m is a lot of money, in some sense, but it's also a speck of dirt relative to the entire US shipping market. There's no way they have a monopoly on all shipping material in the US and only make $712m a year.
The article never said that they were a monopoly either.
Got it. editing my answer.
I swear there was a video posted here not long ago about International Paper producing a large portion of the cardboard boxes in the US, but I can't find it through a search. It almost made International Paper sound closer to a monopoly. (Edit: think I'm wrong about having seen it here, but this is the link to it, apparently International Paper supposedly makes 1/3rd of the cardboard boxes in the US)
In any case, it makes me wonder if Uline buys the boxes from someone like International Paper, or if they make their own boxes or what.
Also the $712 million a year reads to me like it's the owners' personal income, not the company.
If you read it without the strikethroughed part, it is saying its their personal income, not the company's revenue.
I buy things from Uline on occasion for work, albeit very little, but this is news to me. Individually it won't make a difference when I shop elsewhere, but maybe raising awareness for other folks could collectively do something.
Same owner who recently backed an amendment to the Ohio constitution to limit the ability for citizen led amendments to make it to the ballot.
Billionaire backing effort to raise Ohio amendment threshold funded election deniers, Jan. 6 rally
Funnily enough, one of the main slogans for the "Yes" campaign was to "keep out of state money out of Ohio politics." (Spoiler alert, it was resoundingly voted down, so I feel good that he at least wasted $1M on this farce)
Someone make a list of companies that use these boxes, preferably in easily sharable and colorful infographic form. I'm ready to start the boycott and awareness campaign.