The Cost-Saving Blueprint to Right-Sizing Your Custom Boxes
One of the dirty margins a business can suffer in today’s ecommerce world is shipping empty air. When the retail brands in the United States have been operating for years, they have been using standard, stock-size shipping containers for their online orders. The notion was straightforward: purchasing a large order of uniform boxes would be cheaper in terms of the initial cost of packaging manufacturing. But that is not the math of the day as shipping lines are under increased pressure to cut costs and maximize resources.
Today, shipping companies such as UPS, FedEx and United States Postal Service (USPS) only use Dimensional Weight (DIM weight) pricing models. These rules say that the shipping charges for a package depend on how much space it takes up in a delivery vehicle, not how heavy it is on a scale. When shipping boxes are not used to their full capacity, you are paying a huge premium to move unlade void fill. If you are a brand focused on growing your bottom line, it is no longer an option, but an economic must to implement a strategy to right size your custom shipping boxes.
Understanding the True Cost of Over-Sized Packaging
The first step to reducing your fulfillment waste is to know how the shipping carriers determine the dimensional effect of a package. Every time a shipment is sent, it is calculated using a specific and standardized formula that carriers use to calculate the DIM weight of a shipment.
DIM Weight = (Length × Width × Height) ÷ DIM Factor
The typical commercial DIM factor in the U.S. is about 139. If the dimensional weight comes out higher than the actual weight of the box on a scale, then the carrier charges the higher dimensional weight.
For a high-end accessories company, think about delivering a small, expensive product such as custom jewellery, or accent for formal wear. That brand will be billed at a high rate if it fits a pair of high quality menswear pieces into a standard sized box with plastic bubble wrap. By converting the product into exactly designed Custom Cufflink Boxes, the volume of the box can be cut off right away. A brand can match box sizes to product profiles to reduce its billing tier and reap pure profits on a hidden shipping penalty.
Maximizing Warehouse Real Estate and Fulfillment Efficiency
While the cost savings of a right size custom packaging are obvious in shipping labels, they are far-reaching. Over-sized boxes are just another layer to the inefficiency that affects your entire warehousing and supply chain operation.
With custom shipping boxes that are perfectly matched to your product profiles, you will also need much less shelf space at your warehouse. Corrugated sheets are flattened and sized to fit the inventory pallets to maximize your inventory holding areas to store more units per square foot. In addition, right-sized packaging significantly cuts or eliminates the need for expensive void fill material such as packing peanuts, plastic air pillows, and crumpled Kraft paper. This results in a quicker, more efficient assembly line that allows fulfillment employees to seal, label and ship orders in mere seconds.
Protecting Profits and Reducing Product Damage
Many online retailers think that the bigger the box, the better the product is protected with layers of loose void fill. In fact, it is often the contrary: people with the best intentions end up regretting it. Heavy shifting takes place within the over-size containers during rough transport processes of domestic freight networks. When the void-fill compresses or moves, it could bounce around in the box, resulting in product scratches, structural damage to the box and subsequent customer returns that cost the company.
Right sized custom boxes use the integrity of their construction rather than loose packing material to safely hold items in place. The product is then securely locked into a snug, dimensionally correct insert or on the exact dimensional walls. It can’t slide, rotate or bump into outer surfaces and so ensures that it comes to the client’s door in absolute mint condition. All intervals of return reduction, however small, carry a significant positive impact on customer retention and brand equity.
Mistaking material efficiency for sustainable retail
Today’s consumers, especially in the younger age brackets, are very attuned to packaging waste. The packaging shame phenomenon occurs when a customer takes a picture of a product and uploads it to social media, with the product sitting among a pile of non-recyclable plastic film and a large cardboard box.
The packaging shame phenomenon happens when the customer takes a picture of a product, and posts it on social media with a little product hidden amongst a lot of unrecyclable plastic film and a large cardboard box.
Right-sized packaging offers an authentic route to sustainable business. You reduce raw corrugated board in manufacturing and eliminate the use of plastic void-fill, reducing the use of natural resources in manufacturing. Also, the smaller the shipping box the less physical space it will occupy in a delivery van, allowing carriers to fit more boxes in each vehicle. This will streamline delivery routes and have a direct impact on the carbon footprint of last-mile delivery, creating an eco-friendly story to tell to your conscious customers.
End the presentation with the results from the LTROs
One of the best data-driven strategies for optimizing an e-commerce business is an appropriate custom shipping box strategy. The up-front investment in changing the dimensions of the box is in design and production, but the returns are plain to see. You avoid aggressive carrier DIM weight charges, utilize warehouse space to the best, increase packing rates, and reduce damage in transit, creating a robust and efficient supply chain. Spatial efficiency is a key determinant in a very competitive digital marketplace, as brands that get it will be the ones to maintain profitable margins, to please their customers, and to scale effectively.
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