What is a Shipping Container?
8 Novelty Shipping Container Gift Products
Almost every article we’ve written has been about actual, full sized shipping containers. After all, that’s what we do, we sell new and used shipping containers. But there is far more to shipping containers than just that. There is an entire industry based around shipping container novelties, because honestly – who hasn’t wanted to give their significant other a shipping container related gift at least once in their life?
These products are all real, and do, in fact exist. Who knows, these might even end up in future Gateway Container Sales & Hire gift baskets one year. For now, lets investigate the weird and wild world of novelty shipping container gifts and the companies that manufacture and sell them.
8 Great Gift Ideas For the Staff at Gateway Container Sales & Hire
USB Shipping Container Flash Drives
Image Source: Orient Collection
One of the most popular promotional style gifts that you can get at a conference is a branded USB key, with a company name and details screen printed on the side of it. But that’s pretty boring, which is where shipping containers come in to the story. These USB containers are molded to look just like their big brothers – the shipping containers that one would see taking pallet loads of computers, hard drives and other IT related products around the world.
When researching this article, information about this particular brand of USB product was scarce, though we do know that it is supplied by an Australian company that specialises in importing customised novelty type items from Asia for the conferences and incentives market. And just like the real thing, these USB containers come in a wide variety of storage capacities, we are guessing anywhere from the industry standard minimums of 4 GB to larger 64 BG capacities, and if you order enough of them they can be manufactured in pretty much any colour or with any logo that you desire.
The ones on display come in the yellow livery of the Mediterranean Shipping Company, the worlds second largest shipping company in terms of container capacity.
These are the perfect way to keep all of our shipping container photos ready when we need them, or any other useful information that you need with you on the go. USB shipping container flash drives can be purchased from the team at The Orient Collection.
Shipping Container Piggy Banks
Image Source: Play Design Play
We all grew up with a piggy bank in our room as kids, as a way to save up our pocket money for our next big purchase. Nowadays with credit and debit cards we use cash far less often, and spare change often ends up in the car to pay for parking meters.
For those of us with children however, a piggy bank is a great way to teach the kids how to save up their money when they’ve done their chores, or perhaps you are planning on saving up to build an off-the-grid container home. What better way to remind yourself of the project than to save your coins in these great container themed piggy banks.
Our Japanese language skills are a little rusty, and Google Translate doesn’t do the best job of translating directly from Japanese to English. What we can tell you however is that these great looking piggy banks come in a wide range of colours, and if you want to buy the whole set, are fully stackable, allowing you to create a full on port experience on your bookshelf or desk at work. It might take a little longer to ship these, as the company is based in Japan and currently out of stock, but are listed for sale at the Play, Design, Play store.
Shipping Container Tissue Boxes
Image Source: AliExpress.com
No one likes the unsightly look of tissue boxes on your desk or in your room, but whether it’s for a cold or to clean up after lunch we all need a box of tissues close by. One would think that this world of novelty shipping container type things might stop at USB sticks, but you’d be wrong.
Careful searching of worldwide business to business manufacturing website AliExpress provided us with even more shipping container fun, this time in the form of a shipping container tissue box!
Big enough to hold a standard box of facial tissues, these replica 20 foot shipping containers are made of ABS plastic and come in the most common shipping container colours of yellow, green, orange and brown and need to be assembled, just like building a model aeroplane or tank! They can be purchased from the Geek On Way AliExpress store.
Shipping Container Pen & Business Card Holders
Image Source: EC21
If you are in an office, chances are you’ve got a stack of business cards taking up space in a box somewhere and pens everywhere – from your drawers, on your table and wherever else you left them. Or you’ve got your pens in an old glass jar to stop you from losing them – I know I do. These great pen and card holders fix your problems.
Perfect for your own or the boss’s desk – these miniature shipping containers are big enough to hold your business cards close at hand when you need them and keep your pens nice and tidy on your desk. Available in a wide variety of designs, including the colours and logos of the main shipping companies including: Hapag-LLoyd, Evergreen, Medeterrainian Shipping Company, Maersk, Cosco and more, these shipping container pen and business card holders are also able to be fully customised – imagine having your very own Gateway Container Sales & Hire container to store your pens, while you plan your next container project.
These pen holders can be purchased from the accurately named Chamfoo Shipping Gift Company Ltd on EC21 alongside a wide variety of other products including both plastic and die cast scale models of shipping containers for your desk, toy collection or model train set.
Shipping Container Stress Toys
Image Source: Bluetrack
Let’s face it – it’s stressful at work, and another one of the most common things we bring home from trade shows or conferences are branded stress balls. Regardless of whether it’s normal day to day stresses, or those from a major project such as building a million dollar mansion from shipping containers. You’ll get rid of that headache and stress with these shipping container style stress toys.
As with most promotional type products, they are available in a full range of colours from businesses all around the world such as Bluetrack, these shipping containers can be customised with your firms branding, just like what Gateway Container Sales and Hire does with full sized, branded shipping containers for businesses around Australia.
Shipping Container Memo Pads
These shipping container memo pads are perfect for keeping beside the phone or anywhere where you are going to take a lot of notes. Available from the manufacturers and able to be customised to any standard pantone colour, they are an ideal product for any business dealing with shipping or transportation, or for anyone who needs some scratch paper for planning out their next shipping container project. We think they’d look great in Gateway’s colours of Black & Orange.
Where they get really interesting however is that they can be custom printed on all sides, not just the front of the paper, meaning the entire pad ends up looking like a shipping container from all angles, turning it into yet another piece of novelty container art. These container pads are available from the ODM group, a business which actually specialises in shipping container promotional materials.
EVA Foam Mini Containers
Image Source: ODM Group
Another cool product from the team at ODM group have another great novelty item – EVA foam mini containers. Starting off like a container style jig saw puzzled they are constructed from pop out parts of a piece of soft EVA foam that slots together to make a three dimensional container model.
Due to their construction they are able to be boxed and shipped completely flat, a considerable saving on shipping volume compared to your more traditional 3D shipping container models that come in bulky boxes. This allows for more of them to be shipped into smaller boxes, which of course, reduces the actual cost of shipping them across the world in the big brothers – real 20 or 40 foot shipping containers!
Shipping Container Flip Clocks
Image Source: FeelGift
Are you a fan of novelty clocks? Then these shipping container clocks are perfect. With a vintage flip style read out rather than the more common LCD screens we see on alarm clocks these days, there’s a real vintage feel. These clocks would look great sitting in the office alongside all the other shipping container themed stuff we’ve showcased so far.
These can be purchased from online store FeelGift.
So what do you think? What’s your favourite shipping container novelty item, what have we missed out and what would you like to see?
Looking for the real thing?
If novelty shipping containers aren’t exactly what you are looking for, why not talk to us about the real thing? Gateway Container Sales and Hire is Brisbane’s specialist supplier of new and second hand shipping containers in a wide variety of sizes and fit outs. Regardless of whether you want a simple 20 foot shipping container, a reefer or a fully customised container, our team of experts will provide you with the advice that you need to ensure you have the right container for the job.
Contact us now, and we’ll have a shipping container to you in no time.
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