Glass does not break against cardboard. It breaks against other glass. That is the whole argument for a partition box: give every bottle, jar or tumbler its own cell and the breakage rate drops without a single extra inch of void fill. iBox Factory cuts partitions and the boxes they sit in from a 100 box minimum, with the die included.
The arithmetic people skip
Dividers take up room, and the mistake is to size the box to the products and then discover the grid will not drop in. Work it out first:
- Interior width equals cell width times cell count, plus divider thickness times (cell count plus one).
- Cell width equals the widest point of the product plus clearance, and for a bottle the widest point is usually the shoulder or the cap, not the body.
- Interior height is the tallest item plus a top pad if the box is stacked.
A 12 cell grid of 3 inch cells with 0.125 inch corrugated dividers needs roughly half an inch more interior width than the product maths alone suggests. On a tight product that half inch is the difference between a snug fit and a grid that has to be forced in and buckles.
Divider materials
| Divider | Approximate thickness | Holds |
|---|---|---|
| Chipboard | About 0.02 to 0.03 in | Cosmetics, small jars, light retail units |
| E flute corrugated | About 1/16 in | Candles, cans, mid weight glassware |
| B flute corrugated | About 1/8 in | Bottles, heavy jars, freight lanes |
| Double thickness at the outer walls | Varies | Any load where the outer cells take the impact |
Slotted grids, cushions and pads
Standard partitions are cut as strips notched halfway through, slotted together into a grid at packing. That is cheap, flat to ship and quick to assemble. Two variations are worth knowing. A cushioned cell adds a folded pad in the base so the item does not sit on the box floor, which matters for bottles with a punt or a fragile base. A top pad, a flat sheet dropped over the loaded grid, stops items rising and rubbing under a lid during a long lane. Neither adds much cost and both reduce claims.
Where partitions beat a fitted insert
A fitted tray looks better on camera and is the right call when the box is opened by a customer. A partition grid is better when the count is high, the items are uniform, or the box is a shipper that nobody photographs. It is also faster to pack, which matters when someone in your warehouse is loading 400 of them. For the tray and molded options, see packaging inserts, and for glassware specific builds, glassware boxes.
Minimum, pricing and turnaround
Minimum order is 100 boxes. The die that cuts your partition strips is included, so an unusual cell layout costs no tooling. Unit pricing opens at about $0.48 per unit at bulk volumes and the exact number appears on your written quote, since a partition set is priced as board area rather than as a single box. Turnaround is stated per product: rush pairs expedited production with air freight and adds about 7 to 25% depending on the job, standard runs by air from about 7 business days plus 2 to 5 days for delivery, and cost saver runs by sea. Design support, US shipping and a digital proof are included.
Send the product dimensions, the cell count and the packed weight to our quote form and we will lay out the grid and quote the loaded box.
