I don't know what to say other than "your experiences are not universal," because I do shipping and receiving at a machine shop for a living, I see packages sent by professional shippers all the time, and I disagree with you on just about every point.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch.
Nope. For packages I see, two inch packing tape is the norm. Today I had one package with three-inch water-activated reinforced paper tape and one (from Uline) with 2.75" packing tape. Everything else used 2" packing tape. Yes, it's exactly the same kind of stuff that you can get at Office Depot or Lowe's, and people use it because it gets the job done.
Not uncommon for small, light packages. I just don't see box failures on packages under a pound where more tape would have helped. Where I do see failures is overloaded boxes, thirty pounds and up, where the corrugate simply ripped, and no amount of tape would have saved the package.
PSA: please don't fill an 8x8x6 single-wall box with machine screws and expect it to arrive intact. Fastenal, I'm looking at you.
Label on top is standard. I had only one box today with the label on the side, and all the rest on top.
Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled
Your package will get manhandled, regardless of where you put the label. Plan on it.
to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible!
Heck no! I expect labels to be on top and that's the first place I look for them. If it's on the side, that's potentially four other places I have to look, which is a pain in the ass when I'm busy. And I'm always busy.
UPS, incidentally, says you should put the label on the largest surface. For the packages I get, that's usually the top.
Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused,
Okay, that's legit. I do see a fair number of reused boxes.
whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling
Hazmats aren't common enough to mention it every time when there isn't one present. (My hazmats are usually solvents or paint, and that's not something I get every day.)
the condition of the package post shipping
Not usually noteworthy. My internal monolog (which is what the above fanciful review is based on) doesn't bother to mention it unless something unusual happened to the box.
whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label
Although I ship just as many packages as I receive, if not more, it never would have occurred to me to check. And I don't have a scale in the receiving department, so it would be guesswork anyway.
AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
Which everyone uses. There's not much need to comment when it's far and away the most common type of tape.
Perhaps things have been different for you, but this is how it is in the manufacturing industry.
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