The true cost of damaged deliveries: Can you afford not to protect your packages?

Every time a package leaves your distribution centre, you (and your customer) expect it to arrive in pristine condition.

You produce a great product, and naturally want it delivered in the condition it left your premises – not scratched, damaged or broken. Yet all too often, that’s exactly what happens.

One of our customers recently sent a specialist piece of testing equipment to India. The unit, packed in performance foam fittings, was in a heavy-duty export-grade carton and strapped to a pallet.

When it reached its destination weeks later, it arrived minus the pallet and strapping – with packing tape holding the carton together. As the images show, the carton arrived looking more like a paper sack than a cardboard box…

Not only was the packaging severly damaged, the unit itself had received some surface damage. Thankfully, when powered up, the machine still worked as it should – but more through luck than judgement.

This case is obviously rather extreme, but it serves to illustrate the amount of mishandling that items can be subjected to in transit. It raises the question, just what is the true cost to your business when such instances occur?

Calculating the costs of damaged deliveries

When your shipment arrives damaged, carriers will often refuse to accept any liability, leaving you to cover the costs of replacement or repair.

But there’s more than the physical costs to consider. There’s the potential reputational cost too – and the associated loss of time and revenue in trying to restore your customers’ good faith.

That’s why it’s essential to guard against these potential expenses by protecting all your shipments to commercial standards.

In our customer’s case, for instance, the package could have been protected to ISTA standards for just 2-3% of the cost of the unit – guaranteeing safe arrival and preventing the unforseen replacement costs.

Indeed, at UK Packaging, we can design and supply packs that will work to protect your shipments against even the toughest transit conditions.

It’s not a question of whether you can afford to do it – it’s whether you can afford not to…