You’ve taken crucial manufacturing steps to ensure your product is made exactly to your buyers’ specifications. Your product is perfect, but there’s still one last step in making your buyer happy – shipping. It may seem like a simple process, but the final phase of packing and shipping is as crucial as anything else. It’s up to you to make sure important items arrive to their final destination undamaged.

Beware of These Packaging Dangers:

• Dropped items
• High/low temperatures
• Vibration from moving vehicles and conveyer belts
• Crushing weight placed on top or sides from other packages

Once, an item leaves your hands, it goes through a large number of obstacles before finally making it to your client. Keep in mind, your package will be stacked – perhaps on the bottom – along with other boxes in a warehouse and on a truck. It’s crucial to choose sturdy packaging. In some cases, a wooden crate might be your best option. Your product might be transported on a flatbed truck or stored outside where it will be exposed to outdoor elements such as rain or high humidity.

There are many smart packing strategies to make sure your product arrives undamaged.  The best way to pack and ship important items is to pay attention to securing BOTH the inside and the outside of a box. 

Tips for Securing Items Inside the Box:

• Use air pouches
• Consider spray foam
• Cushion with bubble wrap
• Pad with paper

We don’t recommend using peanuts. Air pouches provide excellent protection from shock and impact, and they’re relatively inexpensive. Look for quality brands such as: Fromm Airpad, Airpouch and IntelliPack. IntelliPack makes the SmartBAGGER which allows you to make customizable bag sizes. IntelliPack also makes the SmartSHOT, a traditional handheld spray-foam packaging system. It is designed for all package sizes and is great for cushioning, blocking and bracing, as well as protective void fill. 

If you’re environmentally conscious, paper is a great way to go. Geami makes a packaging system that produces on-demand GreenWrap. It ensures protection, costs less than traditional packaging materials and improves packaging efficiency because you don’t have to use tape to secure it around the product. It is recommended for high-volume shippers who pack more than 50 packages per day. Another option is Ranpack’s selection of FillPak machines for cranking out fast and efficient paper for void fill.

Tips for Securing the Outside of a Box:

• Consider crating
• Choose corrugated cartons
• Use cornerboard
• Pick the right tape
• Wrap it up

For larger, more expensive, highly fragile items you’ll want to consider crating and securing it with nails. Check our blog crating tips. In some cases, good old-fashioned traditional cardboard boxes are just fine. But, if you fear you need added strength for an extra heavy product, consider using corrugated cardboard boxes. Corrugated cardboard includes a heavy, wavy inner layer that makes it relatively strong for its weight.

When it comes to tape, it seems the choices are endless. See our previous blog on tape varieties. There are a couple basic things to note when choosing tape for sealing up shipping packages. Hot melt adhesive tape will stick faster to corrugated boxes. Acrylic adhesive tape takes longer to apply and stick, but will adhere longer. BlackHawk sells hot melt tape, natural rubber tape and acrylic tape among others.

If you’re shipping a pallet, you might want to think about protecting the edges. Angleboard, Cornerboard and Formaboard are good ways to strengthen those corners against moisture so they don’t deteriorate if exposed to outdoor elements. Lastly, you’ll want to wrap your boxes together to keep them tight and secure using machine or hand stretched film.