Protective packaging solution reduces costs by $14 million, improves customer experience.
Today’s retailers are aware that social media conversations about their products or services can significantly impact their business.
When the comments are about great product performance and fast delivery, the impact can be extremely positive. However, when customers use social media to vent their frustration about product damages or over packaging, the retailer’s bottom line is sure to suffer.
The latter was the situation with a major national retailer who was using “ship from store” fulfillment, as well as a few distribution centers to get product to customers. Their centralized ordering system would determine which “closest-to-the-customer” retail location had the items and then instruct that location to ship the product.
What was supposed to be an efficient and cost-effective fulfillment solution resulted in damages, excess packaging or both that were exposed by customers through social media. Further, the company’s packaging costs continued to escalate.
The retailer knew it was time to reevaluate their entire approach to packaging and fulfillment before the negative experience and increasing costs impacted profits.
The ‘before’ packaging scenario
Orders were fulfilled from a small location in the back of each store. Each location was supposed to be stocked with bubble and paper rolls, plus poly bags and/or mailers. It was left to the individual employee to determine which protective packaging solution they would use for a specific product. Sometimes bubble was used to wrap the item and sometimes paper would be crumpled and placed in the case to provide void fill.
Employees would decide on the fly what material to use and how much of it. Frequently, individual products were wrapped multiple times, resulting in excessive packaging. Occasionally, highly breakable items were placed in polybags or mailers almost insuring that the customer would receive them in damaged condition.
Clearly, this random solution approach was creating issues nationwide.
Analyzing the problem
Pregis’ distributor partner was alerted to the problem. The retailer knew it needed to improve its methods and practices. They were open to new ideas that would improve the customer experience and also reduce packaging costs. The distributor knew that Pregis had a reputation as a trusted solutions provider and invited the protective packaging supplier to analyze the situation.
In addition to participating in multiple discovery meetings, Pregis visited six store locations to observe the packaging process. It became obvious quickly that there were significant differences in how employees at each of the stores approached the packaging process.
The Pregis solution
Pregis’ distributor partner was alerted to the problem. The retailer knew it needed to improve its methods and practices. They were open to new ideas that would improve the customer experience and
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