Packaging Advice
How to reduce shipping costs
Right sizing packaging is a win for businesses, consumers, and the environment. Each has a stake in packaging, and we all have a stake in preserving the planet for future generations. By right sizing packaging during logistics, e-commerce businesses can enjoy multiple benefits.
Reduce dim weight costs
When considering how to reduce shipping costs, it’s common to start by thinking about materials. However, materials costs only account for 20% of the total cost of shipping. While the choice of materials is still important, especially viewed through the lens of sustainability, there are other areas of focus that should be considered that make a big impact on bottom line.
Dim weight, short for dimensional weight, is a calculation for measuring the price of shipping a box that is now used by many logistics companies. It incorporates both the weight of the box, as well as the volume, meaning that a small, heavy item in a large exterior box is now that much more expensive to ship. By right sizing packaging to eliminate as much void as possible, businesses pay to ship their products, not boxes full of wasted space.
Reduce packaging waste and improve environmental footprint
Wasted space in a shipping box represents more than just wasted money-it’s also bad for the environment. When a box is significantly larger than the products it contains, it creates the possibility of several negative environmental outcomes, including packaging waste.
By right sizing packaging, the need for additional void fill or cushioning to protect products is also reduced. This is particularly relevant when it comes to reducing plastic single-use packaging materials, such as air pillows. Globally, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled, while 22% is mismanaged. Because plastic films and foams commonly used within cushioning and void fill applications are not recyclable outside of specialized recycling facilities, their fate is usually to be landfilled or incinerated, assuming that they are disposed of and collected at the curb and not discarded directly into the environment.
What kinds of right-sizing strategies are there for packaging automation?
Ranpak’s end-of-line automation strategy is focused on the combination of findings from a Precube’it! analysis, which can calculate an optimal range of box footprints based on the dimensional information of product SKUs, combined with 1D height-reduction applied through a Cut’it!™ EVO machine. The addition of an up-front analysis means that the solution processes boxes that have already been “solved” for right-sizing based on their footprints. The final dimension of height-reduction allows the outcomes of this right-sizing method to be comparable to 3D systems at a fraction of the cost.
Instead of solving for box footprints and then applying height-reduction, 3D right-sizing systems will instead form a box directly around items to be shipped. Typically, these will use a liquid volume conversion to arrive at appropriate dimensions and then create a box to fit the order.
It’s also possible to leverage 1D height-reduction without analysis, simply taking advantage of one dimension of right-sizing, however the addition of optimized box footprints from SKU analysis is what allows these machines to shine, achieving up to 25% more parcels on a pallet.
Smaller voids and lower costs
The Cut’it!™ EVO automated in-line packing machine reduces voids in parcels before shipping, cutting down on shipping costs. It automatically shortens cartons to match their highest point of filling, and then glues a lid securely in place.