Cheap waterproofing, tamper proofing, 'packet' anonymization, and a means of tailoring a box to the custom size.
It needs the waterproofing in part because of the insane monsoon weather that blows into south China and will soak you in seconds and because a lot those packages get shuttled around in the back of open half-truck-half-motorcycles until they get to major distribution nodes.
It's 10 cents per square meter.
It's also partly cultural (everyone else does it this way) - and most sellers are small operations of a handful of people.
It provides seller protection for online purchases.
It doesn't make high value items look inviting.
The cardboard is frequently sourced or reused from whatever is lying around and cut to size so there's less need for filler when using 'standard' Amazon A1, B14, F3, etc style boxes.
It needs the waterproofing in part because of the insane monsoon weather that blows into south China and will soak you in seconds and because a lot those packages get shuttled around in the back of open half-truck-half-motorcycles until they get to major distribution nodes.
It's 10 cents per square meter.
It's also partly cultural (everyone else does it this way) - and most sellers are small operations of a handful of people.
It provides seller protection for online purchases.
It doesn't make high value items look inviting.
The cardboard is frequently sourced or reused from whatever is lying around and cut to size so there's less need for filler when using 'standard' Amazon A1, B14, F3, etc style boxes.