At Ashtonne Packaging, we have helped several of our fragile goods manufacturing customers eliminate damage related to direct-to-consumer shipments while minimizing additional labor or freight costs. Whether you are a new start-up business, a small business, or even an existing business looking to grow quickly, we are here to help and share our experience and expertise to help you increase your sales and profits!
Over the past two decades, the shopping and buying habits of consumers have changed significantly. Previously, the only way that consumers could purchase items would be to visit a retail store, buy the product off the shelf and transport it to their homes. These products arrived at the retail shelf by utilizing a hyper-efficient distribution model developed and optimized over many years. Goods were shipped on a pallet via truck to a retail distribution center. Retailers would deliver the products to the store on their trucks with great care and there was minimal damage to the products. The packaging associated with this model had been optimized to fit this material handling model.
In the early 2000s, the direct-to-consumer sales and distribution model blossomed, through eCommerce, and began to create distribution issues for consumer products companies. Companies had to decide how to integrate a distribution model that included small parcel delivery directly to consumer’s homes, while still serving the long-standing retail distribution model. For companies selling fragile products like drinking glasses, light bulbs, and other fragile products, this transition has been especially difficult. The shift to small parcel deliveries significantly increased the damage of fragile goods in transit because the packaging was designed specifically to ship via the old palletized retail distribution model. Many companies' initial reaction to this increased damage was to add additional packaging materials (additional paper, bubble wrap, etc) to the pack to try to add protection. In some cases, this “over-pack” did help to reduce damage. However, the additional labor costs and freight costs associated with this method proved to be overall counter-productive.
Here at Ashtonne Packaging, with our Design Team of trained experts, we have helped several of our fragile goods manufacturing customers:
If you want to learn the secret of shipping fragile items direct to consumers, you can download the checklist, contact us, or call us at 877-522-6937.
Based on the information you provide from the checklist, we will help you perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine the best course of action to take to help you eliminate damage on direct-to-consumer shipments while maximizing the overall efficiency of your distribution operation.