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One of the parcels that arrived yesterday contained 100 no-name ink cartridges. My ‘standard’ precaution these days is to film the unpacking of every shipment from China. As I gave the flimsy black shipping bag a 360° in front of the camera, I noticed there was some clear tape with large, bold Chinese writing on it in red (but difficult to read because of the black background) sealing one edge. Upon opening it up, there was a white padded bag sealed with the same type of tape; the words, which I could then read, was along the lines of, “Wind control quality speci…”, which I took to mean “special tape used by quality control inspectors for shipments by air”. That can't be good, I thought to myself, and it wasn't: inside were two clear bags holding 50 cartridges each, looking like “kill rooms” in Dexter but with blue ink instead of red splatter all over the walls, and some ink has escaped the bags and stained my fingers. AliExpress didn't give me the runaround this time when I raised a dispute and submitted the evidence, but issued me a full refund within minutes, and didn't insist on my returning the items by post.

I was wondering how people ship ink samples to others. I'm hoping to get started with the ink sample exchange soon. However, I am unsure how people ship 5 mL plastic tubes filled with ink to each other. Specifically, I have the following two questions: 1. How do you all recommend packaging small, plastic vials of ink so that they will reach their destination intact and without earning the ire of the shipper. Is putting the vials in a plastic bag inside a basic envelope sufficient? Or is more packaging necessary? If so, how should I package them instead? 2. A U.S. specific question. Is it okay to mail the ink samples out by depositing them in an outdoors USPS collection box? If so, how many stamps should I use? Thank you for any help.