Lee's Summary:
As a business grows, its packaging doesn’t always grow with it. Rising order volumes, new products, slower packing processes, lack of storage space, and increasing damage can all be signs that it’s time for a review. Your packaging should work for the business you have today, not the one you had five years ago.
Businesses rarely wake up one morning and decide their packaging no longer works; it usually happens gradually. Order volumes increase. New products are introduced, and the warehouse gets busier. As more people become involved in buying and packing, another box gets added to the range, then another supplier, and processes that worked perfectly well a few years ago simply carry on.
We see this all the time when we’re out visiting customers. The business has changed considerably, but the packaging hasn’t really changed with it. That doesn’t necessarily mean the packaging is causing an obvious problem. Orders are still going out, and products are still being packed. But when you look a little closer, there are often signs that things aren’t working quite as well as they could be.
So, how do you know if your business has outgrown its packaging?
You’re using more packaging than you used to.
As product ranges grow, packaging often gets added rather than reviewed. A new product comes along and needs a different box, and another one needs more protection. Someone finds a solution that works, and before long the business has built up a whole range of packaging products. Individually, they might all make sense. But when you look at everything together, there can be a lot of duplication.
We’ve visited businesses with several boxes that are almost the same size or different teams buying similar products without realising it. In other cases, a box originally chosen for one product has become the default for several others, even though it isn’t particularly well-suited to them.
As your business grows, it’s worth looking at the range as a whole. You might find that fewer, better-chosen products could do exactly the same job.
Packing is taking longer than it should.
When you’re sending a relatively small number of orders, an extra minute spent packing each one probably isn’t something you’re going to worry about. But, as volumes increase, that changes and a process that works perfectly well for 50 orders a day can become a real bottleneck when you’re trying to pack 500.
We often see businesses where people are still making up boxes by hand, wrapping products manually or spending time cutting and adapting packaging because the products they’re using aren’t quite right. Nobody necessarily notices the problem because the process has always been done that way; the team simply gets busier.
If your packing operation is struggling to keep up with the growth of the business, it might be time to look at whether the packaging itself – or the way you’re using it – needs to change. That doesn’t automatically mean introducing machinery. Sometimes changing the product or rearranging the packing process is enough. But as volumes grow, there may come a point where packaging automation starts to make sense.
Your warehouse is slowly filling up with packaging.
Packaging takes up a lot of space, and as your business grows, it tends to take up more and more of it. An additional box size is added, larger quantities are ordered to secure a better price, and extra stock is kept because you can’t afford to run out during a busy period. Before long, you’ve got valuable warehouse space filled with packaging.
We see this particularly with bulky materials such as boxes and protective packaging. Businesses can end up storing large quantities of material because that’s simply how they’ve always bought it, but there may be other options.
Could some of your packaging range be consolidated? Could stock be held by your supplier and delivered as you need it? Could an on-demand system replace bulky protective packaging that’s currently being stored? When warehouse space starts becoming tight, packaging is often a good place to look.
You’re using more filler to make your packaging work.
If your team regularly find themselves filling large empty spaces inside boxes, there’s a good chance the packaging isn’t the right size for what’s going into it. We see this a lot with businesses that have expanded their product range but continue to use the same selection of boxes. The box still technically works. The product fits inside and gets to the customer. But you’re also paying for the box, the material needed to fill the empty space and potentially the cost of shipping a larger parcel than necessary.
For higher-volume products, it may be worth considering a larger box. For businesses with lots of different products, reviewing the range of box sizes available at the packing bench could make the process much easier. The answer won’t always be to introduce more box sizes. Sometimes you actually need fewer; it’s about finding the right balance.
Damage and returns are becoming more common.
Growth can change the journey your products make. You might start using different carriers, shipping further afield or handling significantly more orders than you did before. Products may move through the warehouse differently as the operation gets busier.
Packaging that performed perfectly well when the business was smaller might not be suitable for that new journey. If you’re seeing an increase in damaged and returned products, it’s worth looking at what’s changed before simply adding more packaging. The issue could be the box, the internal protection, the way the product is packed or how a pallet is being wrapped. We’ve seen businesses keep adding material to solve a damage problem when the better answer was to change the packaging itself.
Peak periods have become increasingly stressful.
Growth isn’t always steady throughout the year. Many businesses have busy periods where order volumes suddenly increase, whether that’s Christmas, Black Friday, a product launch or a seasonal peak.
When volumes were lower, you might have been able to deal with those increases relatively easily. As the business grows, the same peak can put much more pressure on your packaging operation. Do you have enough packaging stock? Can your team physically pack orders quickly enough? Is there enough space to store everything you need?
If every busy period involves a last-minute rush to order packaging or find extra space, it’s worth planning further ahead. Your packaging supply and processes should be able to grow with you rather than becoming another problem to solve every time things get busy.
When did you last properly review your packaging?
If the answer is “we haven’t”, or it’s so long ago you can’t remember, then now may be the right time to have a packaging audit. We look at how packaging is bought, where it’s stored, how long products take to pack, where waste is being created and whether the packaging is still right for the products and volumes involved.
You might discover some fairly obvious opportunities to improve things. You might uncover a process that’s been costing more time than anyone realised. Or you might find that most of what you’re doing already works perfectly well. The important thing is that your packaging should support the business you have today – not the business you had five years ago.