> (And yes, if you send me a big shipping box in which I have to dig through the packaging chips to find the product, then you probably paid close to that for shipping, but that really wasn't necessary) //
At work I often ship ceramics [in the UK] - none of the couriers will insure it, the reason I'm told is that they all use overhead conveyors and so all parcels have to survive a 2m fall. Perhaps that's part of the reason for "overpacking". Another could be that it's observer bias; occasionally they run out of smaller boxes and so use a large one (necessitating lots of filler) and these occurrences get reported.
At work I often ship ceramics [in the UK] - none of the couriers will insure it, the reason I'm told is that they all use overhead conveyors and so all parcels have to survive a 2m fall. Perhaps that's part of the reason for "overpacking". Another could be that it's observer bias; occasionally they run out of smaller boxes and so use a large one (necessitating lots of filler) and these occurrences get reported.