With the continuing increase of E-Commerce sales, we consistently see companies feeling the pains of over or under engineered packaging for the small parcel supply chain.
A frequent scenario we run into with new customers is a company selling a SKU into a big box retailer and then beginning to sell that same product shipping to a consumer’s front door.
A few commonly asked questions are listed below.
- Should we ship our retail packaging through small parcel?
- Should we have a separate packaging SKU for retail vs small parcel?
- Should we have an overpack that goes over the retail package for small parcel?
All of these are great questions and the answer is, it depends!
There are a large number of variables that need be considered and steps to be completed to make a financially sound, data driven decision. Identifying these variables and steps can often result in a packaging cost savings opportunity!
We recently completed a project for a customer that manufactures product overseas and was experiencing product damage shipping small parcel. BoldtSmith Packaging was brought in to identify, design, test and implement an optimized packaging system. Upon completing the project, we were able to provide a revamped packaging system that resulted in a decrease in product damage AND packaging costs. Below is a high-level overview of the opportunity identified.
- Retail packaging was over-engineered for the supply chain shipping into a big box retailer
- E-Commerce packaging was the same as the retail and was under-engineered for the small parcel supply chain
We investigated the previously mentioned packaging scenarios and determined that applying an overpack domestically to the retail package provided the most ROI for our customer. BoldtSmith Packaging was able to decrease the material costs for the retail packaging by 12%. This less expensive retail package was also smaller which resulted in 20% more product in an ocean container. The overpack cost was offset by the product damage costs the customer was experiencing.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to BoldtSmith Packaging!
