January 2, 2023
Tips -
5 Tips on How to Package Your Goods for International Shipping | OneLink Holdings
Don’t let your goods get damaged in transit. Follow these five tips to properly package your items for international freight shipping.
In today’s global marketplace, international shipping is a must for businesses looking to reach customers around the world. However, packaging and handling your goods for international shipping can be tricky if you don’t know the proper techniques. In this article, we’ll go over the basics of how to properly package your goods for international shipping, so they arrive safely and intact at their destination.
Goods being shipped by air or sea can face some conditions that could put the packages at risk of damage. If your sending goods via air, make sure your package can deal with tilting- which is likely at take-off and landing and the possibility of some turbulence. If you’re sending via sea freight, the package will need to deal with the motion of the sea, including sway, roll and pitch motions. If you’re sending via road, the vibrations and shocks can also damage your package if not packed properly.
1. Choosing The Right Packaging Material
The right packaging material is essential to ensuring that your goods arrive safely at their destination. When selecting materials, you want to choose something that is strong enough to protect the items from potential damage but light enough so as not to add too much weight. Cardboard boxes are a popular choice for lightweight items, while heavier items may require something sturdier such as wooden crates or pallets.
When shipping larger, heavier items, corrugated cardboard boxes are the best solution as they can withstand weight from boxes being stacked on top of each other. Corrugated cardboard is constructed of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards, providing extra strength to the walls of the box. They are easy to source and are available in a range of different sizes and weight capacities. Make sure any packaging materials you use are approved by the shipping company you are using.
2. Using Internal Padding to Protect Items
Once you have chosen the appropriate packaging material for your items, it’s important to consider how best to protect them within the box or crate. Depending on the item, bubble wrap and other internal padding can help ensure that nothing gets damaged in transit. For fragile items such as glassware or electronics, it’s essential to make sure they are properly cushioned and protected with multiple layers of padding before they are sent out.
The biggest contributor to damaged goods is allowing free space in the package, which allows the goods to move around. To fill free space, you can use air-cushioned support or foam peanuts. Another way to fill space is by using the box-in-box strategy. This strategy involves the box of goods being placed inside a bigger box, ensuring all space is covered. If you are shipping goods that are sensitive to moisture, adding a silica gel pack can help to neutralise moisture.
Once you have the external box and internal padding completed, it’s time to then tape the edges of the box to prevent the box breaking open. The best way to tape the edges are by using the H- taping method. This involves taping the edges and seals of the box in shape of the letter H, with high quality packaging tape.
3. Labelling Your Package
Once your package is ready to ship, labelling it correctly is crucial for ensuring its safe arrival at its destination. Make sure all information regarding contents and sender/receiver address is clearly visible on all sides of the package so that there is no confusion when it comes time for delivery. The shipping company should provide a shipping label for you, which will include a carrier code. When it comes to filling in the shipping label, it must be done correctly to avoid confusion and to avoid possible delays. Make sure the correct name of the person receiving is written down, along with the correct address and postcode, including the country. If possible, include a tracking number so that you can track where your package is at any given time during its journey. If you are reusing a box from an old delivery, ensure all old labels have been removed from the box to prevent confusion. Adding a fragile label to any packages with breakable goods will notify handling staff to be cautious when moving the package around.
4. Check the weight and size of your package
Before shipping your items, the packages will need to be weighed to check that it follows the weight and dimensions provided by the shipping company. If your package is overweight, or doesn’t fit within the required dimensions, you will be charged extra fees to cover the overweight package. Heavy boxes also have an extra risk of being dropped when handled, so if one package is rather heavy, consider splitting into two boxes.
It is also important to check the weight of your package as the boxes have weight restrictions, meaning if you’ve packed goods that are too heavy for the box, there is a risk the box could fall apart during transport. If your goods are too heavy for the box, it is crucial to change to a box suitable for the weight to prevent loss or damage of goods.
5. Consider using Palletisation for large items
Palletising is the process of organising and stacking large quantities of shipments onto a wooden pallet ready to be loaded onto a cargo ship or plane. The shipments are stacked according to weight to ensure stability when being loaded by crane. This method of shipping provides more protection for goods and can also be cheaper. When using palletisation, goods should be packaged normally, using cardboard boxes as the outer protection, and filling any internal space with air cushions or foam. The boxes are then stacked onto the wooden pallet according to weight, to prevent shifting when being moved. Once the pallet is full of the boxes, the entire shipment should be wrapped with plastic wrap to bind the packages together. It is important to wrap multiple times using a high-quality shrink wrap. If you want to protect the corners, Styrofoam or cardboard can be added. The pallet is then loaded by crane either into a shipping container if travelling via sea, or if travelling via air, it is loaded directly into the plane.
Written By
OneLink Holdings team
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