Packaging Smart - Size Matters 14 March 2019  |  Charlotte

Packaging and it's suitability has been a major topic for debate over the last few years due to concerns over it’s environmental effects, size appropriateness and it's cost. Supermarkets have especially come under fire for increasingly using excess packaging to store their products, but considerations must be made concerning food storage.

It is no secret that in this day and age the world of ecommerce is a force of nature within the retail industry, with more customers buying online than ever, it has never been so important environmentally, physically or financially to make sure you use the best packaging solution possible and it is the physical aspect that I will hope to address here, size matters.

I have noticed increasingly that products I have ordered online have arrived in unsuitable packaging. For example I ordered a pair of earrings online, (nothing too expensive so no need for a signature) you would think that these would arrive in a small padded envelope, but no! As always there was a level of excitement to receiving my purchase especially as it was for an evening out. This excitement was duly hampered however by a note through my door stating that my ‘earrings’ were too large to fit through the letterbox and could be collected the next day from my local depot. I couldn’t reach the depot in time for my evening out and thus the new ‘earrings’ never received their debut. When I finally collected my order I couldn’t believe the size of the packaging and the amount of it, I had received the Russian Doll equivalent of packaging. My goods were in a box, within a box with fake rose petals, within another box.

I ask myself the question, what benefit could this possibly be to the retailer. The postage would have been an extra cost due to size, along with the three different types of packaging used and the time it must have taken to pack. As a customer I couldn’t see the benefit to myself either. What is the point of shopping online to save travel when I then need to travel 3 miles to my local depot to collect a package that was more than capable of fitting through my letterbox. Environmentally two vehicles had to be used for me to gain my package and three boxes went in the bin.

Try to consider the following when packing and distributing your goods. Environmental, do you need as much packaging as you have used, can you protect your item without excessive packaging. Physically can you protect the goods and it still fit through a letterbox. Finally Financially can I protect my goods a cheaper way.

Here at UK Postal Packaging we have an abundance of postal packaging solutions, so browse through our website and see if we have any products that will help you to address your distribution needs.