In all other circumstances, I only recommend keeping the box IF:
- You plan to sell the item in less than three years after its date of purchase, and
- The original packaging improves the price of the product when you sell it.
For example, I sell my laptops on eBay when I upgrade to a newer model. After tracking laptop sales on eBay for many months, I found that people will pay a little more for the product if it still has its original packaging. So, I keep my laptop boxes to ship them in to the new owner. Granted, the boxes that laptops come in are relatively small and, since I only have one computer at a time, our storage space isn’t overrun with cardboard boxes.