What are your worst and best packaging experiences when ordering a bulb or whatever?

I don't really order this online, but all my packaging experiences are very good. My worst experience was when I ordered two mini cameras, they were packaged in bare plastic bag, but the product where handled with care during the shipping and the product came practically intact, also I got my RGB LED bulb in bare bag, but again the product where handled with care. My best experience was when I ordered my HDMI to AV converter which came packaged in a nice 1cm thick expanded polystyrene box.


I saw a time ago someone whose 8 foot tube where cutted in half by some moron.

Best packaging experience: probably that time I bought two Westinghouse 100w A23 clear lamps from Tim off of LG. They were encased so well in packing material I had to spend a few minutes getting the bulbs out. Everything arrived intact as it should.

Worst: I bought a fairly hard to find traffic signal off of eBay and it was packaged wrapped in a thin layer of loose fitting foam in a cardboard box. Worst of all the internals of it weren't padded so a reflector came loose during shipping and basically obliterated all the glass reflectors and broke the green lens. The seller refunded me a significant portion of the costs so I ended up keeping the light and restoring to function. It look me years to find a matching green lens for it though. Here's is how it looks now with a set of correct matching lenses, a new paint job, and replacement gaskets.

Runner up: I bought a Philips SOX 35 last year from Amazon and it was shipped loosely in a large cardboard box. The outer made it but the inner tube was shattered. They sent me a replacement one which was properly padded and that arrived intact. Here's a picture. 

The Best : My GE Form 109 streetlight , The seller shipped it in 2 separate boxes and packaged it so well it took close to 1/2 an hour to get it unpacked ! This was the most expensive streetlight I ever bought so I was scared to death that it would get damaged.

The Worst :  I've actually had several ! The Westinghouse OV-20 vertical socket streetlight that arrived in a vacuum cleaner box with just a couple of scraps of foam here and there with NO "fragile , handle with care " stickers at all , the Joslyn clamshell streetlight that was packed diagonally in a box that was WAY to small !  Both arrived in pieces !
 My favorite was the ballast that was just thrown in a box 3 times it's size with absolutely NO PACKING material whatsoever . When it arrived, the box was mangled and the ballast was hanging out the side of the box !! 

I've heard someone here once bought a fluorescent ballast. The seller shipped it loose in a box and during shipping it bounced around the box, eventually poked a hole in it and escaped. The buyer ended getting a box less ballast.

As for streetlights, I've only ever bought one online. My second Powerlite mini gumball was shipped relatively well packed but the seller kept the glass on and the lamp installed. Everything arrived intact though.

The best we've ever had was the 4in drain pipe our 200W SLI/H lamp arrived in. You could probably have driven a truck over it without damage.

The worst was a porcelain 3-way mogul socket from the US that arrived in a plastic bag with no protection whatever. It was a mass of little pieces by the time it got here 

Best : Replacement LCD panel for laptop bought from Ebay, shipped from USA. Was packed in bubble wrap inside a fairly big box filled with styrofoam peanuts

Worst : New PC mainboard bought straight from the official distributor. It was shipped just in its original box to the door by a courier (the sort of UPS or Fedex). It arrived (in the box) flattened by a car or forklift riding over the box and board inside, RAM slots twisted out of place etc. Shipping company response : We're sorry.... (The distributors always ship them like that and usually it arrives undamaged, but this was really freak accident)

Pretty much my lifetime supply of Sylvania 100w A23 mercury lamps were packed very well in multiple layers of packaging that took minutes to open although some lamps had badly damaged phosphors. Also, my SLI/H fixture was wrapped in many layers of packaging and my SOX street lights from England were packed in multiple layers of packaging as well.