Every business benefits from efficiency, but retail especially benefits from every last little optimization you can make in all your processes. That includes how you package your product.

So take a look at a few ways you might use to improve your packaging efficiency:

1. Plan Your Packaging Design from the Beginning

Many businesses leave this over as a final step in the process. Big mistake! You must have a clear plan for your packaging in mind from the outset. It’s crucial for winning attention and more sales.

With your packaging, consider its cost, design, space required on the shelf, and how much space you have for production.

2. The Massive Difference Machinery Makes

The most skilled and well-intended employee just can’t match up with a machine. The typical pallet wrapper increases pallet wrapping speed by an astonishing 70%.

So how much work do people currently do on your packaging? Perform an audit and figure out how much using machinery can improve your efficiency. It may also make sense to hire an experienced consultant to perform an analysis of your packaging.

3. Gather as Much Data as Possible

You don’t have to use IoT, but that’s clearly a trend that makes sense to capitalize on. Whether you use IoT or find other methods for data collection, it’s key to determining your packaging efficiency.

You’ll want to look at your film waste, damaged product, and time required to package, among many other data points. You may also want to work closely with your supplier, who knows the latest price fluctuations.

4. Don’t Forget to Analyze How You Use Your Space

The typical occupancy cost (cost of your space and utilities divided by your total cost per order) runs from 25-35%. So some of the first places you should look for efficiency improvement should be up and around.

Receiving, picking, packing, and shipping should use 40-50% of your space. Product storage should use the remainder. Racks, mezzanines, conveyor belts, and multilevel order-picking can dramatically improve your efficiency.

5. Communicate Performance Metrics To Your Team

Your team needs to understand your baseline. They must know what they’re doing is measured so they can learn what to do to help improve your packaging efficiency.

Most employees want to know exactly how they’re performing. They take pride in improving productivity.

So, create your own system for doing that. Consider including challenges with performance-based incentives to increase productivity even further.

There you have a mini packaging efficiency audit. And you have solid ideas for improving your efficiency going forward.