Why your business needs right-sized packaging

Right-sized packaging is the opposite of shipping small products in big boxes. It’s packaging that minimises the empty space around your product — whilst not comprising its safety or your branding. Or put another way, right-sized packaging is the most effective, and most efficient, size packaging for your product.

The benefits of right-sized packaging are many. As a business, you reduce your material usage, which means fewer costs across procurement and production. And smaller, lighter packaging also means fewer costs across transport and storage. All of this means a smaller carbon footprint, less waste and a better, less frustrating customer experience.

Whilst right-sized packaging seems a logical choice, businesses are notorious for using oversized packaging. According to DHL, the average box is 40% too big for its contents. In part, this is because businesses often buy large volumes of stock packaging to reduce unit costs. As a result, they have just a few packaging options for all their products. Products are then shipped in the nearest fitting packaging, regardless of their size. In practice, this means companies end up shipping the product and all of the air around it, which is expensive and wasteful. To put the scale of this waste into context, eliminating the 40% excess volume DHL cite would mean 24 million fewer truckloads annually — in the USA alone.

Another catalyst of oversized packaging is e-commerce. Unlike traditional retail, e-commerce is more complex and more people are involved across fulfilment, freight and last mile delivery — with up to four times as many touch-points. And with more touch-points, the risk of damage increases. According to one study, the average package is dropped 17 times in transit. Businesses use oversized packaging and void fill to minimise this risk and avoid breakage costs. Reducing breakage is important, but many companies don’t realise that with right-sized packaging they can both minimise risk and reduce costs, all whilst being more sustainable.

Let’s dive deeper into why your business needs right-sized packaging.

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1. Slash costs across your business

Right-sized packaging is an ideal strategy to reduce costs for any business. In fact, choosing right-sized packaging can have a fortunate snowball effect across your business. Smaller packaging means fewer material costs, which then means fewer production costs and handling fees. And it means fewer transport costs as more packages can fit on a pallet. Or if you’re sending single products via a courier or Royal Mail, your package may fit into a cheaper parcel bracket. And finally, you can store more products for less, which also increases your buffer stock — a useful way to build a more resilient supply chain.

One famous example of right-sized packaging is IKEA’s Ektorp sofa. IKEA’s engineers worked out that instead of shipping the sofa as one piece, they could break it down and ship it as parts. This allowed them to eliminate the air they were shipping (and paying for) and reduce the packaging size by 50%. For IKEA, the result was an annual saving of €1.2 million and 7,477 fewer trucks on the road every year.

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2. Reduce your carbon footprint

Whilst IKEA reduced their packaging costs, they also reduced their carbon footprint. Fewer materials meant fewer resources and less energy used to produce those materials. And it meant significantly fewer transport emissions as well as less waste. Although there are exceptions, the rule of thumb is when you use less, your carbon footprint falls, and right-sized packaging is an opportunity to use less. It’s important to remember that right-sized packaging is about removing redundant materials and keeping those that serve a purpose. This makes it a simple way to create more sustainable packaging without jeopardising your product.

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3. Create frustration-free packaging and empower your customers

Consumers are tired of bad packaging, so much so that they’ve started Reddit threads to showcase the worst examples. Youtube too is full of consumers venting their anger about oversized packaging.

Their irritation is twofold. First, oversized packaging is often frustrating to open, with unnecessary materials creating a more complex, sometimes overwhelming experience. And second, oversized packaging is wasteful. At a time when research is showing that consumers want to be more sustainable, using excessive packaging hinders their efforts and doesn’t reflect their values. Right-sized packaging, however, addresses both parts of their annoyance. By keeping material usage down, it creates a frustration-free packaging experience and empowers your customers to play a part in reducing waste. A win-win for them and you.

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Managing right-sized packaging is hard, but Sourceful can help

As great as right-sized packaging is, it isn’t perfect. Problems often arise because right-sized packaging is only right for one product, which means you may end up with a lot of packaging SKUs. Managing this can be tricky, but with the right tools, it doesn’t have to be. With Sourceful, you can use smart tools like Auto-Stock to manage, track and replenish your packaging in one place. You can also store everything in Sourceful’s warehouse. Fast-growing brands like Zoe and Floom already use Auto-Stock to easily manage their packaging, no matter how much they have. Want to learn more? Contact us.