This is Why You Don’t Store Expensive Electronics on Cheap Shelves

If you’re in a business where you need to keep an inventory of expensive cameras and electronics, make sure you find storage shelves that are up to the task. One business learned that lesson the hard way through an unfortunate incident that was caught on camera.

Here’s a short 16-second clip that was caught on an unnamed business’ CCTV camera back in 2016 (warning: there’s some loud music on the clip):

The man in the clip was facing one row of shelves when his back barely bumped the shelf behind him on which some camera equipment, including a couple of Fujifilm X Series mirrorless cameras, is sitting. Those two rows of shelves slow start tipping over before they completely collapse, causing the other shelves in the area to fall over as well.

Gadgets these days are generally packed well enough for them to easily survive this type of tumble — they almost certainly receive rougher handling during the shipping process — but cleaning up this type of mess is not a fun thing to do.

So the next time you need to buy some shelving, consider paying a little more for heavy-duty shelves that can withstand both heavy loads as well as a good amount of lateral force (or if you must use weaker shelves, try adding some diagonal bracing to prevent this kind of tipping).

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