Only a few people know the importance of packaging in logistics. As a business owner, you want to use durable materials that will make customers happy to receive your products.
Proper Packaging can help your business in numerous ways, from order processing to the hands of your customers.
Logistics packaging is a component that is occasionally forgotten during the order conditioning stage. But if it is handled well, it can significantly increase productivity.
How can you make your packaging more effective in this stage?
What are the strategies required to boost its productivity?
Let's discuss.
What is Logistics, and How Does it Work?
Supply chain or logistics management makes moving products and services easier. This involves converting materials or products that are raw into finished commodities. The supply chain includes product planning, sourcing, production, storage, picking, and distribution.
Supply chain optimization should manage product packaging in a timely, affordable, and error-free manner. While a poorly built supply network may negatively impact customer happiness, a well-structured supply chain can lower costs and boost efficiency during transportation.
Logistics are becoming increasingly complex. If a simple thing goes wrong, it can upset the entire system. This is why it is important to take care of every detail during logistics. The most significant factor that should be given utmost attention is product packaging.
Read More: Why is Packaging Inevitable for Supply Chain Management Globally?
Let's see the importance of packaging in logistics:
Why is Packaging so Important in the Supply Chain?
An ideal supply chain should include packaging as a crucial element. Since packaging acts as a protective carrier for things or goods during manufacture, sales, marketing, and distribution, it is a crucial part of the entire process.
Product Packaging safeguards finished goods as they move through the supply chain management workflow, particularly when they are transported to retailers and their final location.
Packaging not only protects your product while in transit, but printed logistics packaging also helps to distinguish your goods from those of your rivals and gives them a more polished appearance.
The following are some of the main points that describe how packaging is so vital for logistics:
1. Prevent Non-Compliance-related Delays
Depending on what you are shipping and where it's going, you must consider regulatory factors while packaging your logistics.
Palletized items must be transported by precise regulations, for example, if you are shipping to the EU. If you don't comply with these regulations, your shipment will most likely be delayed at customs. There's a chance that it will be rejected at the border.
If shipping abroad, you must be aware of packaging compliance challenges.
2. Safeguards Your Assets
It costs money to transport goods that are labeled or damaged. In addition to losing the cost of the item and the money you spent shipping it, you could also need to send a replacement. Even worse, if it happens frequently enough, you might lose your clients or damage your reputation in the industry.
Logistics packaging solutions ensure your products get to their destination undamaged, which helps you save money and time.
3. Increases Storage Convenience
Ask yourself this question:
Between initial shipping and delivery to the final consumer, will your products spend any time in a warehouse or storage facility?
If so, having the proper packaging makes storing much simpler.
Regardless of its shape, your product can be easily stored on shelves or pallets with the right packaging.
4. It Facilitates Travel
Many products would be extremely difficult to move without proper packing. Consider something as basic as a box of carpenter's screws.
Can you imagine transporting these goods without first placing them in a box or other container?
By properly packing your products, you can transport them more conveniently.
5. The Provision of Important Information
Also, logistics packaging & assembly provides critical information to the final customer and the individuals transporting your goods. Packaging can have some information, like "fragile" or "this side up," which may be as simple as just two words or other complex information, like instructions to store the item at a particular temperature or proper handling instructions.
More Read: International Packing Symbols: A Complete Guide
Types of Packaging in Logistics
Choosing the right packaging for a certain type of product is very important. In addition to the impact on customer perception, the packaging's size, composition, and design directly impact the expenses associated with storage and shipping. As a result, a company's strategic choices regarding primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging are crucial.
Below are the types of packaging in logistics:
Primary Packaging
A product is contained, stored, and protected by its primary packaging. It keeps the item in the best possible condition while directly in contact with it. The well-designed packaging boxes will make the product easier to sell. It comes in various shapes, including cans, jars, sacks, bottles, and bags.
Secondary Packaging
Primary packaging is grouped with secondary packaging. It increases protection and makes it easier to market the goods widely. Boxes made of cardboard make up most of this packaging, while plastic boxes are also possible. A single carton of milk, for instance, would be primary packaging, and the cardboard box that houses the pack of cartons would be secondary packaging.
Tertiary Packaging
The most frequent types of tertiary packing are pallets, containers, and cardboard boxes. Tertiary packaging combines primary and secondary packaging to generate bigger unit loads.
Tertiary packaging is a fundamental unit a business utilizes for storing and transporting its goods. Pallets, boxes, containers, barrels, reels, large boxes for bulk goods, sacks, big bags, and other similar items are used to transport heavy goods. All of them are examples of tertiary packaging.
Why Do you Need Sustainable Packaging Logistics?
It is time for greener delivery packaging!
Our planet is being devastated by plastic. It chokes the oceans and affects the air we breathe. People frequently buy large things like beds, furniture, and appliances online, and the typical packaging size grows as large package shipment becomes more prevalent. Using cardboard boxes is a clever choice to package these heavy goods.
"The last mile remains the biggest economic and ecologic challenge in e-commerce."
ISAAC HELLEMN, BRAND MANAGER, P&G
The most that companies can do to protect the environment in the future and to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers is to use recyclable or reused materials in their packaging.
Also Read: Flash Back to the Vintage Packaging Designs Era
Which One Should You Choose?
It is advisable to classify the primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging types and consider how and who would be impacted by a potential adjustment. This will help you to discover areas for improvement in packaging management.
In the business world, evaluating the packaging's optimization level in terms of its material, handling, storage, transportation, and cost makes sense. You won't be able to select the most suitable logistics packaging for your business standard without a general understanding of the procedure.
We hope that this article was helpful for you to get an idea of the importance of packaging in logistics. To create the ideal packaging for your requirements, consider various packaging materials and their characteristics.
If in doubt, consulting a packaging professional will make things easy for you as they will develop a truly optimized packaging approach for your product's improved supply chain management.
