More on reducing packaging costs by making your own boxes.
For me the Enveloboxer and The Boxer were only the start. You can extrapolate, only if wished of course, as they're just scoring boards with measurement charts. They work on the obvious principle of the box base having slightly smaller dimensions so that the box lid fits over (and having a cheap £5 circle punch so you can make half-circles for people's fingers to lift the lid). People have been making such boxes forever, using only a ruler (I started in the 1970s), then the dedicated Enveloboxer and The Boxer came along. Such basic boxes can be made in under 2 minutes (under 60 seconds for a famous magic-fingers crafter, not me!), yet are expensive to buy or, another way of looking at it, they're an easy way to make much profit.
I personally no longer use the Enveloboxer or The Boxer as I either know the measurements, actually the proportions, by heart or I measure by eye only using an ordinary scoring board, which has two ends open so you can score card of any length/width. I usually max at A3 as larger becomes unwieldy on a standard-size board. (A3 is 297 x 420 mm / 11.69 x 16.54 inches.)
I've also used print-for-free online templates as you can scale up the measurements. Again, once I got the hang of it, templates no longer needed. A box (especially the sort that forms its own lid) is one of the most straightforward 3D items and anyone can make a box i.e. you don't need templates or even a ruler. A box doesn't need to be made neatly or symmetrically.
I've also used Craftelier's box-making guides, which are rigid plastic corners/T-shapes you slide/slot box sides into to hold them while you glue/tape, then remove the guides.
You can cut down larger boxes. Hubby and I bought a box-cutter (expensive) to re-size them, but soon got the hang of doing it by eye. He said it re-uses a box he'd otherwise have to break up anyway and recycle. A box-cutter merely has a ruler and a guide to help make a cut at the same level on all sides.
DIYing/re-sizing a box saves on ullage (spare space) and thus postage cost. Lots of ullage means spending time, effort and material on filling that space = higher postage. Saves on buying boxes, taking delivery, storing them.
But it's a good idea if you feel satisfaction or even enjoyment in box-making - it's tedious otherwise.
If I was a private seller on eBay, I expect my main concern would be that the time/effort/£cost of boxes/packaging was covered by the "postage" that's paid by buyers, but the problem is that "postage" is taken by buyers to mean the actual postage cost and not any extra to cover "and packing". That requires sellers to source AND PAY for their packaging materials without reimbursement, thus obliging sellers to factor it into the goods' price. A "large" commercial eBay seller can buy boxes/packaging at bulk discount. So to compete on prices, for a private seller it's an advantage to reduce packaging costs and thus reduce what has to be factored into the price, hence my original post giving hopefully a useful tip on reducing packaging costs.
