As a business owner, you know the importance of delivering products on time and in perfect condition. But what happens when a package reaches its destination with damages? Not only will this cost you time and money, but it can also damage customer relationships. Knowing how to prevent shipping damages can help protect your business and keep customers happy. Here are some tips on how to prevent shipping damage.
Reasons for Parcel Damages
- Ill-fitting packaging – When the box used to send the product is either too big or too small for the item being shipped, providing improper protection.
- Poorly labelled packaging – For example, the mishandling of a fragile item or incorrect delivery attempts.
- Water damage – This can occur when moisture enters the package and damages its contents.
How Shipping Damage Can Harm Your Business
Parcel damage costs money and affects customer satisfaction levels—the last thing you want is to have customers complaining about damaged items they received from your store, which can lead to negative reviews that overshadow your business’s strengths. Additionally, if a customer has to return an item due to parcel damage and reorder it again, this can affect your turnaround times, bottom line and shipping costs.
Ways to Prevent eCommerce Shipping Damages:
- Use the Right Packaging Materials
Using suitable packaging materials is essential for ensuring that your product arrives safely at its destination. Make sure you choose the correct size box or container for the item you’re shipping so it can stay intact in transit due to a poor fit. Consider upgrading to double wall corrugated boxes for your packaging for greater strength and durability, which are perfect for heavier or more fragile items. Also, ensure fragile items are securely secured, so they don’t move around too much during transport; this will help reduce the risk of breakage or other damage when goods during shipping. Lastly, use quality packaging materials such as honeycomb wrap, which can help protect against shocks or bumps during transit. Honeycomb wrap is a fantastic, eco-friendly substitute to bubble wrap that provides excellent cushioning for items when being shipped. Our honeycomb wrap is 100% recyclable too, which can help enhance your business’s green credentials. - Check the maximum weight of your box
It is vital that before purchasing boxes for your item, you double-check the maximum weight they can handle and weigh items beforehand. If you choose packaging that can’t take the load, your items will likely get damaged during delivery. - Correctly Label Fragile Items
When sending fragile items through the post, it’s essential to make sure they are correctly labelled so that handlers know how best to treat them during transit—failure to do this could result in items being thrown around carelessly, which could easily cause breakage or other forms of damage (notwithstanding any external factors like bad weather). - Provide Robust Delivery Options
Offering customers robust delivery options such as express or next-day delivery can increase their satisfaction with your service, which ensures that goods are delivered quickly and efficiently, so there is less risk of them being damaged in transit due to delays or mishandling. Additionally, consider using tracked deliveries. Tracked shipping helps you (and the customer) monitor packages throughout their journey from pick up to delivery.
No one wants to receive a damaged parcel; accidents can happen, but many can usually be avoidable. Check out Weedon’s wide shipping box selection, including our double wall corrugated boxes, postal tubes for posters, to eco-friendly flexi-hex bottle packs for the ultimate protection against glass bottle breakages. And for extra security, discover our eco-friendly substitute for bubblewrap. Unsure of what you might need to prevent shipping damage? Get in touch with our team today, who will be happy to assist you!