Selecting the Right Packaging Material for Shipment

The difference between safely delivered products and damaged products is the use of proper Packaging Material. During shipment, various products are exposed to different conditions and damage inflicting situations wherein the contents need to be packed with suitable packing material if their security is to be ensured. I am sure you would not want the contents to be damaged in any way when they are received at the destination.

The following tips should help you to select the right packaging material for shipment.

·         Evaluate The Storage Needs For The Products

This is the first and most crucial step in the packaging process wherein the product’s characteristics need to be evaluated for understanding the storage environment required for its safe delivery. The key factors that need to be evaluated include dimensions, weight, fragility, shelf life, special storage temperatures (cold, hot, freezing, etc).

·         Consider the Mode of Transport and the Nature of the Transit

Road transport media involve a lot of rough handling and the packaging needs to be durable enough to bear such handling. In the case of marine or air transport, the shipments are usually stacked in groups and then these are kept intact for a major portion of the transit. This means that they do not experience any major forces, except for the ones where the products stored within the package may vibrate in their position and hit against one another.

It is also important to analyse the nature of the journey to which the product would be subjected. Multimodal transports would inflict greater damage to the consignments during handling so the packing material should be durable enough to withstand such wear and tear without compromising the safety of the contents.

·         Check the Inspection Requirements

Inspection requirements play an important part in the selection of required packing materials. At times there may be a single checking requirement. But there are cases when the consignment needs to be inspected multiple times during the transit and this calls for packaging that can be opened and packed without much hassles. If you use a pretty rigid packing material, then it would become quite cumbersome to expose the contents for inspection. So choose wisely.

·         Go Green

With everybody striving to achieve sustainability in their business operations, you should also adapt to the green initiatives wherein the packaging materials used by you should either be made from eco-friendly materials or they should be recyclable. Not only does this increase your contributions towards ecological conservation, but it also reduces the overheads costs due to decreased costs of packing materials.