What does a gaylord box cost per trip?

Everything is multiplication and division you could do on a napkin. The ticket only saves you the napkin.

These figures are invented to show the steps. They are not prices from us and not a statement about the market. Suppose a new box is quoted at 30 dollars and makes one trip, and a used box is quoted at 18 dollars and makes three. The new box costs 30 dollars per trip. The used box costs 6 dollars per trip, so used is ahead by 24 dollars on every trip.

Now the season. With 30 loads and 10 percent spare, the used boxes needed are 30 divided by 3, which is 10, times 1.1, which is 11. The new boxes needed are 30 divided by 1, times 1.1, which is 33. Eleven used boxes at 18 dollars come to 198 dollars; thirty-three new boxes at 30 dollars come to 990. The break-even for the used box is the first whole number of trips at which its price over trips falls to the new box's: 18 times 1 over 30 is 0.6, which rounds up to 1 trip.

A trip count is a guess about handling. A clean, dry box on a short loop between two sites may make a dozen trips. A box that goes out on a truck to a customer and is not seen again makes one. The ticket starts with one trip for a new box and three for a used one so that the page is not empty, and it marks both as estimates. Change them.

A spare share covers boxes that arrive crushed or get damaged on the dock. Ten percent is a starting point, not a rule.

• Short loops between your own sites: more trips per box.
• Boxes that leave with a customer: usually one trip.
• Wet storage or rough handling: fewer trips than you hope.
• Harvest bins that stay on the farm: several trips in a season.

• If the two quotes are not for the same style, wall count and bottom, the comparison is not fair.
• If freight is quoted separately for one and included in the other, add it to the price first.
• If a used box will touch food, the cheaper price may not be allowed; read the food-contact guide.
• If the load is heavy, a weaker box may not carry it at all, whatever it costs per trip.

The ticket is arithmetic on your numbers. It cannot know whether a box suits your load. The weight capacity guide and the sizes table help with that.

• Quote both boxes the same way: same footprint, same wall count, same bottom, delivered or not delivered, set up or flat.
• Put in the trip count your handling really gives, not the count the seller hopes for. If you have never tracked it, start with one trip for a new box and be glad if the real number is higher.
• Re-run the ticket when the season changes. A box that makes four trips in a dry plant may make two on a rainy farm.

The ticket will also tell you when new wins. A used box that makes one trip and costs almost as much as a new one is not a bargain, and the line "New is ahead by" will say so.

Cost per trip answers "which box?". The season total answers "how many, and what will it cost?" It divides your loads by the trips each box makes, adds the spare share for damage and rounds up, because you cannot buy part of a box. A small change in the trip count moves the total a lot: 40 loads at three trips each take 15 boxes with 10 percent spare, while at two trips each they take 22.