Postal tubes have long been the preferred option when it comes to sending out rolled items such as artwork & posters with couriers or through the postal service. This is because strong cylindrical packaging such as cardboard postal or mailing tubes offer superior protection of their contents at incredibly low cost.

Whilst their strength and cheapness is an undoubted benefit for senders & recipients in terms of protecting their contents: a tendency to roll & fall off tilt trays or conveyor belts causes problems for parcel carriers who are increasingly automating the sorting process of parcels in an attempt to cut costs. The challenges due to an inability to automate postal tube sortation means that many major parcel companies are reluctant to carry traditional round tubes or are not prepared to offer senders their most competitive rates when they do.

All of the above leaves many users of postal tubes faced with the prospect of moving away from postal tubes and reducing the strength of their packaging simply to comply with a carrier’s requirements. This is of course not an ideal situation as neither the customer, sender, nor the carrier really want to force goods to be sent in packaging which is inferior in nearly all aspects to cardboard tubes. The hassle of being faced with an increased number of damaged goods of course carries extra costs for all concerned. And the prospect of having to over package items simply because postal tubes roll — works counter to many organisations attempts at improving their environmental practices by minimising packaging.

The answer to many of the problems highlighted above are our ARO Caps. They have been tested on many of the major carrier's sortation systems, so if you are looking at how best to transform your round postal tubes or mailing tubes into an easily conveyable item – our anti-roll caps for round postal tubes are probably the way to go.

At the time of writing, some carriers do not insist on conveyable parcels but if you want to negotiate the cheapest rates with carriers such as DPD, FedEX, DHL, ParcelForce or other couriers you should be able to avoid manual handling charges by using our anti–roll caps for cardboard tubes.