Corrugated Boxes 101: An Overview

You want your package to arrive safe and sound, so you use corrugated boxes. But why did you choose these boxes for your package’s safety? Maybe because that’s what everyone else uses, too. Corrugated boxes are the most common form of packaging used by companies around the world. Here’s how these boxes became superior.

Corrugated History

Way back in the 1850’s, corrugated was developed as a liner for top hats to keep them standing up straight. It wasn’t until the 1890’s that corrugated was developed into a box form. And only by the 1970’s were corrugated boxes widely used for shipping, like they are today.

Build Behind The Box

There are eight elements that are combined to determine a box’s strength and crush resistance. These elements are: construction, flute size, burst strength, edge crush strength, flat crush, basis weights of components, paper weights, and surface treatments and coatings.

Box Design

There are so many styles of corrugated box structures out there. The Regular Slotted Container (RSC) is the most common box style used. In the RSC, all of the flaps are the same length from the fold to the edge. A few other popular styles are: Full Overlap (FOL), Half Slotted Container (HSC), a Full or Partial Telescope Box, Corrugated Tray, or a Corrugated corner pad. There are also special die-cut shapes that have an almost endless number of designs.

There’s even more that goes into a simple corrugated shipping box. Find out everything you need to know about corrugated boxes here.

Ready to put your logo on your corrugated shipping box?

This article was written by our digital marketing intern, Redding Byrd.