You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge a product by its package. Or, at least that’s what consumers often do anyway.

Your packaging processes need to be spot-on. If they’re not, you run up your own costs and lose some of your competitive edge to other companies.

The great companies do all the little things right. What do they do in relation to their product packaging?

Here’s what you need to analyze so you don’t fall behind:

Underestimating the Impact of DIM Pricing

Estimates typically find shipping the exact same product using DIM pricing versus traditional weight-based pricing costs you 30% more. There’s many solutions to this problem, although optimizing your packaging could be one of them. You may replace weak, shallow cardboard boxes with stronger corrugated cardboard, for example.

If you don’t have the time, or team, to analyze your packaging, you could always consider looking for outsourced help.

Not Taking the Complexity of Packaging Efficiency Seriously

Packaging products has become almost ridiculously difficult because of the explosive growth in e-commerce. There, you have hundreds of SKUs, even more possible combinations of products, and they have to be matched by a packer to just a few limited box types. That packer, by the way, is under pressure to produce.

Here’s what ends up happening: a large portion of the box volume isn’t used. Your customers receive items that clearly look like they haven’t been cared for. And that reduces the chances they’ll order from you again.

Clearly, this is difficult to optimize on your own.

Not Realizing Market Demand for Sustainable Packages

Consumers are increasing their demand for sustainable products. Petroleum-based packaging like polystyrene is going by the wayside. And this is especially happening because sustainable packaging now has similar costs to petroleum-based packaging.

You can even get better performance in less space with some types of sustainable packaging.

Thinking You’re Operating All Alone

A change in packaging can affect a surprisingly large part of your company. Say you change one product’s packaging. That affects the size and type of carton used for packaging, the amount (and maybe type) of materials used. That also affects how this product stacks on pallets, as well as how it moves throughout the rest of your supply chain. Since this also changes appearance, you may also need to include sales and marketing in the process.

What seems like a simple change may be much more difficult than you realize.

There’s numbers of other problems that cause packaging inefficiency. Call Pollock at 855.239.5153 for solutions to your packaging challenges.