Product packaging greatly affects consumer decisions because it communicates your company’s values and what your product can do for consumers. Treat your product packaging as important as your product, a communication, and marketing tool for your business. Also, your packaging differentiates your brand from your competitors and creates brand recognition. But, how should you pack your products? 

In this article, you'll learn some helpful tips on packing your products to minimise damage.  

Invest In High-Quality Packaging Supplies 

While you strive your best to ensure manufacturing or creating high-quality products, it’s also crucial to invest in high-quality packaging supplies. It will help minimise product damage from your production area to the hands of end-users.  

Your package should survive being dropped, extreme temperatures, belt and truck conveyor vibration, and compression. Choose the best packaging supplies from a reputable supplier, such as Stanley Packaging. Find one that offers an extensive range of product packaging supplies, such as the following: 

• Bubble wrap 

• Packing peanuts 

• A4 adhesive paper  

• Padded bubble envelopes  

• Ziplock bags  

• Pallet wrap  

• Receipt rolls 

• Mailing satchel 

• Joining Tapes 

• Masking Tapes 

• Thermal Receipt Printer 

Know Important Things To Consider 

Protect your products from spoilage, breakage, tampering, and returns by using high-quality packaging supplies. Purchasing managers should know the important things to consider when choosing the best packaging supplies, which include the following: 

• Durability: Get samples of packaging supplies and test for durability and quality.  

• Cost-effectiveness: The price of packaging supplies has a huge impact on your overall business expenditure. So, don't overlook this important consideration. Try to find the right packaging supplier to strike a good balance between quality and price.  

• Convenience: To avoid delays, ask your supplier how long the delivery usually takes. You want to ensure that you have enough supplies in place.  

• Security: Security is a critical factor to consider when selecting packaging materials. Choose products with tamper-evident seals and other safety features. Ensure packaging supplies include poly straps, shrink wraps, container seals, opaque wraps, and water-activated tapes. 

• Environment And Legal Impacts: Packaging has environmental impacts. Consider working with suppliers and consumers to share the responsibility in reprocessing, reuse, and conservation of product packaging supplies. Also, choose legally compliant products in terms of shipping and logistics laws and regulations.  

Carry Out Special Care Instructions  

Because your product packaging reflects your company image, it’s essential to carry out special care instructions to ensure your products' safety. You can perform the edge crust test or ECT to help minimise product damage. This test measures the weight that you can stock on a box before it eventually deforms and collapses. It’s advisable to fill the space left with packing materials which act as a cushion. 

Take a look at the following special care instructions for the following products: 

• Liquids: Don’t forget to isolate liquids, such as drinks, perfumes, and alcohols from other products. Stock liquid products as far as possible. Padded poly bags are suitable for packing liquid products.  

• Fragile: Foam structures, padded poly bags, and packaging peanuts are great packaging solutions for fragile items.  

• Rain Damage: Water damage might happen during shipping. You can avoid water damage by using waterproof sealants.

Automated Tracking And Inventory Management 

Automated tracking and inventory management are important in minimising and addressing product damage once a customer receives the order. Automated tracking would help in automatically marking your orders as dispatched on platforms with tracking numbers. By integrating your system to the shipping carrier, the system will automatically add tracking information and inform your customer. It will eliminate the hassle of checking and updating shipping information every time. 

If you have an inventory management system set in place, you can connect logistics and shipping data to multiple marketplaces. You can easily adjust multiple orders to all sales channels, which is an efficient way to monitor and change pricing, stock levels, and other relevant product information. Watch out for automated trends, which are very promising for future business logistics. 

Set A Good Packaging Policy 

Your employees should know the guidelines they need to follow when packing customer orders. Setting an acceptable packaging policy will minimise product damage because of following a proven standard that works for your goods.  

Check the following examples of packaging guidelines: 

• Collectible and fragile items should have three inches of cushioning inside of the box. 

• Securely wrap the product in, at least, two rolls of bubble wrap.  

• The package must be filled with inner-filling material, such as foam wrap, crumpled paper, foam peanuts, and corrugated inserts. It will avoid product movement inside the box. 

Conclusion  

Your packaging should be able to protect your products from all causes of damage. Whatever product you’re selling, make sure to choose high-quality packing supplies from a trusted supplier. Consider the durability, security, convenience, and cost-effectiveness of the product packaging. Carry out special instructions for fragile and liquid products.