It turns out, brands aren’t exactly eager to publicize their failures. Who woulda thought? But you know how much your brand is losing from damaged products. So then how do you reduce product damage during transit?
After all, there are consequences that come from damaged products landing on a customer’s front step.
It hurts your brand perception and leads to disappointed customers and poor reviews. This can affect customer loyalty and be a drain on future purchases.
If that’s not enough to hurt your bottom line, then consider the direct costs of damaged products, including issuing refunds, replacing the product, re-shipping it, and additional logistics costs such as warehouse labor.
And then there’s the environmental costs. From excess emissions and water usage to wasted raw materials, damaged products are worse than none at all.
I spoke with Leo Chao, Creative Director at Zenpack, about the potholes that lead to damaged products, what goes into redesigning packaging to decrease product damage, how to identify problems, the timeline involved in a redesign project, and more.
How Poorly Designed Packaging Leads to Breakage
It’s a common refrain: You design your packaging, ship out your product, and then complaints and returns start coming in. The product keeps getting delivered with damage. The packaging looks good, protective. So what went wrong?
Understanding the Journey
“It’s a misunderstanding of the channel,” Chao said. “Packaging design usually starts with protectiveness, but that needs an understanding of the journey. Journey A is going from a boat to a truck to a warehouse. But if it’s going to Fedex directly or drop-shipped or something, that’s an entirely different journey.”
Chao said that the route your packaging takes has a considerable impact on the design of the packaging. And not understanding the route will lead to more product damage. Product protection is good, but knowing what you’re protecting it against will help you determine the design of the packaging.
The list is long, but is there a lot of rain that your product has to go through? Will it be dropped often? Is it going upstairs, on a pallet, on a boat? And then there’s the type of boat to consider, the type of pallet, the type of truck, and even the type of port.
But to what extent does the journey and location matter? If you’re shipping your product from Asia, does it matter if it’s going through the Port of Long Beach or Seattle?
“Air and freight definitely make a difference because of the weather. I think maybe the really advanced designers understand each port even. ‘Oh, this port has this type of truck or lift.’ But it’s mostly the type of travel—air or freight—or temperature. So if it’s going through winter in the northern parts of Canada, will the glue actually withstand -40 Celsius?”
And that makes sense. After all, you wouldn’t get a malaria vaccine if you were going on a research expedition to Antarctica.
But while understanding the journey your product takes can help you better protect it, sometimes that changes too. Chao said another common pitfall in design failures is when packaging is designed for Journey A, but it eventually takes Journey B. If the journey changes, the packaging might need to change too.
Using the Right Materials
Once you understand the journey of your product, then comes the time to start picking out materials. But even materials have different subtypes, and while it may all be the same to many of us, packaging professionals know that these subtypes matter.
“A brown shipper,” Chao said, “could be $0.20, it could be $1.20 or $2. And they perform entirely differently.”
Many of us just see cardboard the same, and cheap may be fine in some cases, but if the grade doesn’t match up with what’s needed, then the packaging won’t hold up. Chao said there’s seven different types of cardboard grade, and through testing, they can determine if the board you’re using is up to par.
What’s Inside?
Obviously what you’re shipping matters, and at this point the product and the inside of the package—the structure of it—gets attention.
“Sometimes the product is fragile,” Chao said. “And sometimes the product is super robust, but there’s a chip inside that’s sensitive to vibration. We’ve had this happen before where the box was perfectly fine, no damage at all, but the product broke because of the truck vibrations.”
Inserts or cushions can help soften vibrations as they allow a product to move slightly within a box. This decreases the number of shakes and lowers the vibration frequency.
The above example works for electronic products that are built solidly but have sensitive technology, but fragile products like glass need different solutions. In this case, protection against impact is the priority. Frozen foods, likewise, need packaging that can hold in temperatures that keep the products intact.
Designing for Stakeholders
A lot of people need to handle these packages, and if there’s a hiccup at any point in a package’s journey, then breakage is likely. The outside of the package is designed for the end customer—and maybe inside for the unboxing experience. But most of the package is designed for the people in the middle, the ones responsible for getting that package to the paying customer.
Chao said affected steps in the journey could be during warehousing, either with regards to storing a box at a certain level of efficiency, folding it, gluing it, carrying it, etc. At some point, a box will need to be picked up, and if the length is too long for someone’s arms, then the package might be dropped every ten steps.
“When you understand the product, have the proper protection, then you say, ‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do inside the box,’” Chao said. “That process depends on how good you are. That’s sort of the essence of good structural designers. The good ones figure it out in a very simple way. It’s not complex, adding multiple materials. No. Really good design is just like two folds, done. That’s brilliant design. It takes years of experience and understanding though.”
The knowledge that a warehouse employee could have a difficult time gluing a box fold can be the difference between your package arriving pristine or damaged.
Poorly designed packaging happens. And it’s usually a result of a misunderstanding along the way. But if you follow the four steps, then your products will likely arrive in good condition.
- Understand the journey.
- Choose the right material.
- Examine the product and the inside of the package.
- Understand who will handle it and how.
That’s really what it comes down to. But of course, there’s always variables.
“Every product journey is kind of different,” Chao said. “Every product’s different. And luckily, there’s testing that gets you at least 90% there. Then you think about the other things that tests cannot show or simulate. You just gotta think it through.”
Timeline for a Packaging Redesign Project
The typical timeline for redesigning a failing package is at least two months, although it could be as much as six. And multiple models could take longer. The main problem is simply figuring out what went wrong.
When you’re not riding on a truck or in a shipping container with a package, it’s hard to immediately diagnose the problem.
Chao talked about a redesign project for New Air, who sells mini fridges. They had a breakage rate of around 40%. Although the packaging always looked fine, the doors wouldn’t close or were flat out broken by the time the fridges were delivered. Nothing worked to fix the problem.
“They used styrofoam,” Chao said. “They used all kinds of different stuff, material that’s gross and plasticky and supposedly works fine, but never did.”
When New Air came to them, there was no obvious solution because the cause wasn’t apparent.
“We took a good month just analyzing what was happening.”
Finally, Zenpack’s packaging engineering team discovered two issues. Low vibrations during shipping affected the protective insert, dislodging it to the point of failing. The second issue was simply the size of the box. Dragging, dropping, and throwing were all likely part of the final delivery leg. And it was this combination of vibration and impact that caused damages to the door, even though the packaging looked intact.
Chao said that had only one of those issues been present, the packaging likely would have performed, but two problems were too much for it.
If you know the issue before the redesign starts, then it’ll be easy. But if not, then Chao might stare at your box for a month. (I think I’d rather stare at goats. But then, that’s why he’s good at this.)
“I feel the most difficult thing is to actually understand what is wrong,” Chao said. “If the problem is clearly defined, meaning I know exactly why it’s broken, then the solution, generally speaking, isn’t that hard.”
Considerations for a Packaging Redesign
When you’re looking to have your packaging redesigned, what does it look like? What are the considerations to keep in mind?
Besides this list below, Chao said it’s helpful if clients take some time first to understand the problem. It’s far more cost effective to come in already knowing the spot in your product’s journey where it keeps breaking.
But if you keep these in mind and plan for them, the redesign should go smoothly.
- Redesign process fees.
- Testing phase, both of the problem and the solution.
- Increased material costs such as adding higher grades of corrugate or new material types like molded pulp.
- Having a clear end goal.
The last one, a clear goal, is one Chao emphasized.
“How do you validate the solution,” he said. “Our goal is to get it past the test. That’s usually how these projects deliver. Passing the test is considered a successful design. But in the real world, it’s always good to see some numbers, like okay, damage dropped from 4% to 0.5%.
“And we can’t really comment on that because that’s not our arena. The client needs to understand what’s good for them.”
Typical Breakage Rates
I don’t think anyone would be happy with a 40% breakage rate, but still, what’s acceptable? Because it’d be naive to think that zero is the standard.
“Below one percent,” Chao said. “But that’s a general number. If you’re selling Rolexes, then point one percent, or point point one percent. It depends on the product and the industry. I’ve had clients tell us a 5% damage rate is fine. Their margins are high and they just send another one out. They don’t even get the damaged one back.”
Less Product Damage is More Sustainable Packaging
It’s a mantra at Zenpack. If the product arrives damaged, the packaging is not sustainable.
From a resource standpoint, the product is wasted and the packaging is wasted. That’s why designing to reduce damage is always the starting point for any project, new or redesigned. If you need a packaging redesign project handled well, then give Zenpack a call. We won’t even blink when we stare at it.
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