Ship and Drop Testing

We understand how expensive a customer complaint or return can be. A product damaged in shipment can be very costly to reship, replace, and potentially even more damaging to your online reputation. One never really knows the true overall costs of negative customer feedback.   

Redesign and Retest

A complete package redesign is rarely required. In many cases we can dramatically reduce damage returns and increase customer satisfaction with a minor design tweak, a change in material specifications, or adding non-void fill, protective packaging solutions. If a customer is experiencing any reoccurring damage, it is our job to determine where the design weakness is and correct it at minimal cost. It is rarely a major expense. 

The Process

protective packaging

There are potentially several factors that impact the performance of any package design. We typically focus on three:

  1. The product application – we pride ourselves on being experts on safely shipping glass products direct to consumer and our safety record is unparalleled. However, other (non-glass) applications can be equally challenging. For example, aluminum bottles and cans can easily dent in shipping, potentially ruining the unboxing experience. The contents may be completely undamaged, but the consumer can be an unfair judge, and the negative impression created can be long-term.
  2. The method of shipping and distance – we will take the time to discuss what you ship, how you ship it and even where you ship it. Are your customers local or international? Do you pack one product per box or multiples? Keep in mind most damage when shipping more than one item is product to product damage. In other words, it is not outside/in damage.
  3. The costs of your product and shipping – this information can be very important because thanks to dimensional (DIM) shipping rates, solving a damage problem can be a great opportunity to right size a shipping container, usually more than offsetting any increase in a packaging design change or modification.

Ship Testing

This is the testing method of choice when our customer/client is more concerned with real world design performance, not necessarily data and lab results. In this case, we help create a design and then provide as many samples as necessary to ship to one or various locations, utilizing the customer’s choice of carriers, such as UPS, USPS or FedEx. Example, ten complete sets shipping to five locations around the country. In our opinion, one damaged product is too many, so we reevaluate each packaging component to determine where and how the failure occurred.

Drop testing

This can be quite complex, but it is thorough. For example, for any application where we are asked to create internal, protective packaging, we conduct a standard, ISTA 3A type 9-point drop in house. Unless told otherwise, we do this from a 30” high horizontal surface, and we drop it on nine different orientations: the most fragile corner, three edges radiating from that corner, and all six faces (each of the four sides plus top and bottom.

For customers who do not feel comfortable with the packaging designer (us) doing their own testing, we can utilize an independent lab and testing facility.  However, understand our objective is to create a long-term relationship with you so it is in our mutual interest that any testing be accurate, positive and conclusive.

Interested in a new packaging design or perhaps improving the performance of a current one? Please do not hesitate to contact us at this site or call us at 630-551-1700 for a no cost, no obligation consultation with one of our non-commission branded packaging advisors.    

Interested in a new packaging design or perhaps improving the performance of a current one?

Please do not hesitate to contact us at this site or call us at:

630-551-1700

for a no cost, no obligation consultation with one of our non-commission branded packaging advisors.