Impact Of Omnichannel Retailing On Packaging

There has been a continuous shift from retail shopping to e-commerce purchases in the last five years. However, it has been a slow process. The recent months of the pandemic have accelerated this shift. The projections rose to 40% to 50% of online purchases compared to the shopping trends in the pre-pandemic world.

In such a scenario, the concept of omnichannel retailing is gaining popularity. Retailers now have to ensure a seamless shopping experience for their consumers, regardless of the initial location of the product in the shipping process. The main aim is to develop packaging solutions that ensure speed, quality, reduced overall costs, and improved consumer experience.

The product packaging in this entire scenario is easier said than done. Companies may have to initiate the shipping of their products from various locations, including manufacturing units, distribution centers, fulfillment houses, and retail stores. It means that a desirable consumer experience in a retail environment may not remain desirable when the product is brought into the e-commerce situation.

Nonetheless, an omnichannel approach tends to change the entire scenario significantly. When a consumer places an order for any product, it may come from any of the locations that have this product in stock. That location could be a retail store, a distribution center, or the manufacturing facility itself.

In such a scenario, the product may have to be placed in a corrugated box before it is shipped to a particular address. It means that the product may have to be exposed to a bumpy journey via a car, a postal vehicle, or a truck.

Considerations for omnichannel retailing

This article tends to provide only the basic information about how omnichannel retailing works. For this purpose, we will list a few considerations.

• Retailers need to use durable materials for the primary packaging of their products.
• See if you can produce two designs for the same product – one for the retail stores and one for e-commerce.
• Referring to Amazon may be the best way to develop more efficient packaging designs.
• What is the sustainability value of your package when it disposed of or sent to the recycling units?
• You will need to see the impact of resin supply pricing and availability on the packaging design decisions. For instance, recycled PET supply and quality face disruption due to COVID-19. On the other hand, prices for virgin PET and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) resins are the lowest ever.

Aside from these considerations, the success and failure also depend on how brand owners establish internal communication. Departments of most businesses, nowadays, are not coordinating with each other quite well. It means that a department makes a decision without taking into consideration the ability of another department to execute that decision. For instance, if a marketing strategy focuses on creating an aesthetically perfect packaging design but doesn’t consider the packaging efficiency, the end result will more likely be a disaster.

A packaging that can facilitate omnichannel marketing should have marketing, design, operations, production, and procurement well aligned.

No Two Boxes Are Alike

Knowledge can really help you in business.  Knowing what is what and how things work are key to staying ahead of the competition. In 2021 I have been busy learning how to improve our own business and some of that came with the idea of using different boxes.  That seems like a pretty simple thing and if you had asked me last year I would say a box is a box and that they are all pretty much the same.  But with the search to be competitive in this day's shipping market and with the fact that our company ships heavy items.  This leads me down a path to discovery on how to save money.

We now had to ship heavy items instead of putting them in a car at the store.  Most people would call our company a brick and mortar business and that has been what we were for years.  But with the foot traffic simply not legally allowed we moved to an online company.  We had done shipping in the past, but due to the weight we usually just found a super heavy box that we had been shipped and shipped our items out.  But this year all items are being shipped out and we are having to spend extra money to make that happen.  We all know super heavy boxes cost a lot of money.

So, the packages needed to do it correctly without any thoughts of damage or tearing happening.  So that was my first task was to find boxes we could use to ship our products out in.  I am a big fan of local and amazingly the laws allowed giant companies who are filled with people to stay open.  Ironic, but I looked locally and got prices for boxes and tape.  Shipping supplies at this location were pretty expensive and I was not even sure if they would work.  

Now I looked on Amazon and was not too thrilled about what I found.  It took me a while to find a company that would give good shipping and the price seemed to be about 20% less on Amazon.  This seemed the way we were going to have to go, but I was still not sure if these items would work for our heavy products.  It was a risk and I wasn't ready to spend thousands of dollars on a company I couldn't contact or call.  The customer service was flat-out trash. 

The best answer came when I found a shipping supplies company that specialized in this sort of thing.  This company told me all about the industry and gave me the low down on how boxes are made and the different ones for different tasks.  There are heavy-duty boxes that are actually corrugated boxes and they can handle the weight of our products without fear of having issues.  But the tape I was using would not hold the weight so I learned what stuff was correct. 

We all have fears and I was afraid the price would be insane because this was more specialized, but with bulk pricing, I was able to get the correct items for us at a 10% discount from amazon pricing.  But that was just the right answer and I was super happy with the outcome and service that was provided. 

Is the Packaging Ready for Clamp handling

Clamp handling in supply chain operations can help to reduce the labor costs, accelerating the product distribution. But can it also cause problems with your packaging? The simple answer is yes.  The extreme horizontal force can cause your packaging to get squeezed, and it can crush them. But as supply chains grow to evolve and consumers are now expecting either same-day or next-day types of packaging, the new systems to expeditated the movements through distribution is possible. Clamp handling is a good way to reduce the manual labor, while also creating quicker truck loading and unloading. For a lot of packaging consultants, there is more and more clamp handling being used, and with more high-volume products getting pushed around, the loads typically are floor-loaded and consolidated, where they’re unloaded by hand or by a clamp truck. Clamp handling is a good way to move everything, and it has a ton of benefits, especially ease of use and the like, but packaging can be negatively impacted by this. Here, we’ll go over the good parts and the drawbacks associated with this. 

The Benefits 

The benefits of clamp handling are simple. There is trailer cub optimization, which for those who are familiar with the inbound and outbound types of inventory, you probably know this as the absence of pallets to move or load the products by putting them directly on the floor of the trailer, which saves a lot of the pallet space and the trailer capacity. By eliminating the sue of pallets, you’re offering more of a volume for the payload. In the logistics and packaging world, space is a money number, so if you’re trying to “cube out” the trailers, you want to consider this. 

This also is a lot cheaper too, since it can save you hundreds on this, and also saves you money on stage and inventory. It also means less costs for labor, so the staff is able to handle, and also can be loaded or unloaded onto multiple types of trucks. 

The Drawbacks 

The biggest drawback is the fact that most packaging isn’t designed for this, since it’s been changed to ECT grade board, which isn’t good for stacking vertically, supports compressive loads and stacking, and it can be subjected to horizontal compression from the clamp handling, so you may want to add more board or packaging for this. There is also the lack of operator training, since this can cause packaging fatigue in a lot of cases, since operators may not be trained beforehand, or trained as much as they should be. 

The clamp truck operator should be doing this for at least six months, but in a lot of cases, there are some who are just placed out there, which causes a lot of hazards to clamping, so you want to make sure that if you’re going to use this, you make sure you’ve trained the operator. Finally, there is the problems with equipment operations, since a lot of times, there isn’t one set change of pressure for this, but in order to do this, you can now use ne tools to adjust the parameters that’s needed on this.While there is definitely a lot of issues to be had with the clamp operations, you want to make sure that you prepare your products for this. If you’re going to use clamp handling, get it ready, and see for yourself if this is right for you to use, and if there’s any changes that you should put in place before you begin with this as well for you. 

Things To Know About Contract Packaging

If you are running a business that sells products to your customers, you have to pay attention to find the right packaging solution for your products. That is where you may find it necessary to set up a packaging line. You will also have to study different types of packaging machinery and materials.

You will have to calculate the cost of labor that will run your packaging operations. Additionally, you will have to keep an eye on the potential costs of every item. As all this is not enough, you may also need to consider the option of warehousing.

If you have enough budget and resources to deal with all these requirements, it’s good. But, if you are coming up with challenges that you think you might not be able to overcome easily, you may have to think of relocating your business to where it is easy to set up the entire business infrastructure.

Sure, it is not a practical option for everyone to relocate the business. At this point, you will realize that running a packaging line and managing your supply chain operations is quite a responsibility.

That’s where you may start thinking about contacting a contract packaging company, also known as a co-packer. Handing supply chain operations over to a contract packaging company can help you focus on business matters other than packaging and distribution. With all the right machinery, a contract packaging company will bring much-needed efficiency into your business operations.

What is contract packaging?

Contract packaging refers to a business hiring another company to manage their packaging and distribution tasks. You can hand over all or some of the packaging and distribution tasks to a co-packing company. For instance, you can hire such a company to take care of the primary product packaging, secondary product packaging, or both.

Hiring a contract packaging company works best when you have to focus on the core capabilities of your business. Such a company will manage your supply chain needs without bothering you about materials or other packaging-related requirements. They will get the orders and work on them.

With contract packaging, you can save money by negating the need to set up a packaging line and buy materials. The co-packing company will use packaging materials that suit your products in the best possible way.

These companies have all the necessary resources to manage packaging and supply chain operations. They usually have the right personnel and resources to work on the design, R&D, labor force, printing services, and fulfillment requirements. They will perform several operations depending on your packaging requirements.

Another benefit of hiring contract packaging companies is that you do not have to worry about packaging efficiency since you do not have to take care of machinery and optimize other resources required for packaging and shipping. All these tasks will be nicely taken care of by the co-packing company.

While a co-packer can benefit your business in the best possible way, finding the right one can be quite challenging sometimes. Apart from searching online, you have to be a bit investigative to steer clear from scammers.

Don't Lose Money On Packaging

There are a lot of areas that we can fail in.  When it comes to busienss in 2021 shipping is not one of them.  This needs to be an area that you are dominating in. That is because lots of change has occurred and it also means that there is a lot of opportunities.  Even with all the job loss that has taken place and massive amounts of unemployment, there is still opportunity in the United States.  What I mean is that eCommerce is really rocking the market and is being very successful.  There are lots of ways to make money by shipping and not simply doing brick and mortar, and you should find the way to do it because it is awesome.

What we have seen this year is that anyone can be successful online.   I want to go over just a few in order to help with the crisis that we are in and see you be more successful.  Don't be afraid, sometimes costs can be minimalized and you can gain huge competitive advantages over the competition by knowing just a few things about the industry.  The big area I am talking about is your department that moves all your product.  Being organized is really important and minimizing the time and amount of employees you need is important when the market gets tight or the spending goes wild.

Go through your warehouse and step it up because you will need it this year.  I mean that all your products can be put into inventory and taken out super easily and quickly.  Really I think like Amazon when it comes to this and their number and letter system is basically like a library.  I highly suggest creating an ABC and Numbering system for your warehouse and making sure your Sales software links up in the same way. It may take a full weekend to reduce it, but it will be worth it.  If you can simply have half the employees working on gathering shipments and doing inventory because you will simply need it.

Don't get tripped off spending too much money on supplies.  If you are doing nothing but shipping then the costs for boxes, tape, and labels are going to get high and fast.  That means you need to make sure you are spending the right amount of money on your shipping supplies.   What I have found is that the only way to get ahead in this area is to go straight to the creator of those products.  There are shipping supplies stores online that specialize in bulk products and can provide all your needs at a steep discount. 

More importantly, is that that these stores are providing shipping specific items and higher quality products then you can simply get from using amazon or your local big box store. It is really is an awesome way to do business and we found that we spent 20-30% less for higher quality products when we shopped at these types of stores instead of just what was easy online.  So don't be foiled by Amazon and now you can even find a way to stay competitive with Amazon because they are always going to be there.  Now go out there and crush the world and competition.  Do your best and have fun with it too. 

Get your whole company eCommerce ready

I like learning new things and taking that experience into my future careers.  I have had some crazy jobs but some have really helped me in my current career.  One of the jobs that I was not a big fan of but that taught me many lessons was managing a warehouse at a car dealership.  I was ahead of the parts warehouse and my entire job was to keep the staff keeping our inventory easily found and easily sold. This was a job that I have taken many lessons from and given them to many companies that I now work for.  The fact is that you can absolutely cut down massive amounts of spending if you know what you are doing and have a great backend to your business.

One job that taught me a lot was working in a warehouse.  I was technically the manager and it was a good expereince.  It didn't seem to fit my skill set very well, but it paid the bills and I needed that for my family at that time.  I was working full time and going to school full time as well.  This meant I was busy and my goal was to cut back on all the work that we needed to do at the warehouse and also to save money.  I knew that if I cut the costs of working here that I would be able to keep an easy job and I got a degree at the same time to it was a good thing.

Now when it started with was a company that needed a good packing system.  Most of the warehouse when I arrived was in working condition but really random and not many systems were in place besides taking inventory in, in the morning.  This put me on the task of having our work accomplish the same goal in different ways. I asked them to ship the same item but had different people do it. I wanted to learn what they were using and how much of each item they were using.  We simply purchased all of our items from UPS and that was the only way in everyone's mind.  I find out that they had to use a lot of boxes and a whole lot of tape each day.  We were shipping parts so we also had to fill the boxes to be safe and make sure no issues happened.

Now I knew this could be a big money spending section so this sent me on a shipping supplies search for the best products for the best cost.  I called up UPS and some other companies to see what was available.  I saw we spent thousands each month with UPS and I wanted to know if we could spend 6 thousand dollars less each month.  Then I called up major shipping supplies companies and got quotes for the boxes and tape we used each month.  It turns out they even had plans to cut down on the type of tape we were using because that was going to be big savings in the long run.

Talking prices down is key and I ended up spending a whole lot less. It turns out that it also made our relationship with our delivery drive better.  I told him we figured we would have another company deal with all that crap and he loved it.  He hated delivering boxes to clients and this made his job easier.  So do what you can and help people out.