How to Prevent Product Damage During Transport
Plenty of businesses overlook the vulnerability of their products and the product packaging during the transit, be it from city to city, nationwide, or internationally. Product packaging needs to be designed per the distance the package is supposed to travel and the number of times it is probable to be handled by the courier workers. According to Packaging Digest, 11% of the goods that enter the distribution centres, have already sustained damage.
Damaged items will not only have extra costs of return and replacement, but they will also scar the image of your brand that has taken you years to make in front of the customers. Read below the reasons and prevention methods for these damages:
Causes of Damage to Merchandise:
The path travelled by your packaging is not always a plain smooth road; there are different rigours of the transit that have to be tolerated by the products:
- Repeated Handovers
Have you ever wondered how many hands your parcel has been travelling through before it reaches your doorstep? Or how many warehouses has the package been through? Transit for local parcels may be direct, however, when it comes to international or cross-nation deliveries, the package may have to make several stops. There is an equal risk of damage for your products at all of these points.
- Poor Loading
Loading can have impacts on the transportation of your products. For instance, it is easier and safer for transporters to stack, arrange, and safely deliver orders that come in stackable packaging. Packaging shape that fit together well and remains stable during the transportation process, is known as stackable packaging.
- Exposure to External Factors
The external factors under focus here, are the ones that come during the journey. Exposure to continuous vibrations, sudden thrusts, and other movements that are caused by road bumps etc.
How to Overcome Probable Damages:
There are several ways that packaging flaws can be fixed. From small but impactful changes to completely redesigned packaging, measures that are beneficial for your products are important to be taken as soon as possible. Your existing packaging needs to be audited for any structural or technical flaws that are causing the products damage. This audit analyses your product packaging through different lenses and enables the designing of a flawless one. Some common mistakes can easily be fixed like:
- Choosing Sturdy Materials
We discussed how packaging gets to be handled over and over repeatedly by different workers. This continually endangers the products and increases the risk of accidents. Although the human factor cannot be eliminated, the best solution is to come up with a packaging solution that can withstand pressure and shocks. Choosing sturdy material for your packaging is the best way to avoid transit damages in this case.
- Shape Your Packaging
Packaging shape matters when it comes to transportation. Unique packaging shapes might be good to trigger your customers’ curiosity, however, it can be difficult to transport your merchandise in bulk when the box shapes do not fit in. Arrangement and space become problems! An easy way out of the tight spot is shaping your custom packaging in shapes that can fit together well enough and stack up easily.
Losing products midway delivery is a tragedy that can affect your business in several ways. From customer complaints to returning charges and replacements, fixing the entire situation screams extra charges. The best approach to tackling this matter is through the creation of reliable custom packaging that is guaranteed to guard products.