Usually I’ll keep the boxes I get from buying/trading and reuse them, but my post office is no longer accepting the small boxes on account of them “getting lost too easily” (which is fair, but it has not been an issue for me yet). Ideally I’m looking for something cheaper than the flat rate boxes from USPS (and plus the small ones rarely fit a yoyo box anyway) TIA
Primarily I cycle whatever boxes I get by whatever means into my shipping however standard 4x4x4 uline boxes are probably your best bet. If you’re on a hard budget you can go to a grocery store ask about boxes and then cut the large boxes and make smaller more or less sturdy boxes for shipping. Then you just need snowing to cushion the YoYo. Bubble wrap is king but in a pinch newspaper will work wonders heck I’ve seen folks use shredded paper as a green packaging method. Basically either go to your local shipping depot and buy materials or get craft with some free stuff you might have to leg it about to get the stuff and dedicate some time to make em.
Or if you have any form of neighborhood community you could ask folks if anyone has small boxes they can give you. My local buy nothing group does that often.
Walmart has 6" cubic boxes for like 50-60 cents each. And you can get them in a bundle for even cheaper, something like 40 cents a box.
I normally re-use boxes, but if I don’t have any old boxes left to use, those are what I grab. Cheap and if I need to grab some packing tape or bubble warp, it’s right there too.
I use the USPS flat rate boxes. I wrap them in brown wrapping paper and then send them first class which is cheaper than the flat rate. The small, flat box works well for me.
I’ve had people ship me things in cereal boxes and similar… seems to work fine. They just tape off most of the outside to make it more parcel like. Theoretically you could probably ship a yoyo safely inside a papermache ball…
Do you use a 3rd party to purchase your labels (e.g. Pirate Ship)? If so and you have a mailbox, you can just slap the label on the package, put in your mailbox w/ the flag up, and not have to deal with the post office in-person at all (unless they’re extra petty and stamp it “return to sender”).