Tom Ford, who opened three Shopify stores selling hundreds of T-shirts per week into US, EU, Middle East and Asia. All the buyers loved the cool design and this is why he had many sales per day and the business kept growing fast.
Then Tom came up with the idea to have his own logo and brand printed on the package box. In this way, the buyer or package receiver would know that the parcel came from him immediately when it was delivered. Also this should be a good way to advertise his store as more people would see his logo on the box. He told this idea to his account manager from SPNS, but Alisa advised him not to do this for below reason.
“A brand new package needs to be transferred at least 4-5 times between different locations and countries in the process of international shipping. For example, an order to US would be shipped from Shenzhen to HK, and HK to US Airport, and then to USPS Post station before it’s finally dispatched to receiver’s hand”
“Though the whole delivery time is 1-2 weeks only, the package would be torn a bit or a lot and the logo would possibly be erased off and cleaned up, and the box would look a bit messy and the logo maybe disappear (eaten by shipping)”
Tom insisted on his idea and would like to give it a try, then he got 1000 boxes printed with his logo and instructed SPNS to pack & ship all orders with the boxes.
One week later, some of his customers received the package and sent him photos of the package and products inside. Surprisingly, Tom found that his logo did not show up on many of the boxes and he could not found them anywhere, and some logos were not complete any more except the letter B which was the only thing left. He learnt lesson from this experience and did not proceed with the idea of putting logo on box.
Summary
Quite many start-up ecommerce sellers tend to spend lots of time on designing their package and expecting the package to be 100% clean, 100% tidy and 100% complete to be delivered to customer’s end. But actually most of the package would get torn or broken in international shipping, and the logo on the package would be erased somehow via multiple handling, picking, dropping in transshipping procedure.
SPNS tips on how to do a good package
1. Logo print is not advised on package. A clean and plain box or bag would be the best option.
2. Regarding firm product which does not easily get damaged, we will pack them with bubble bag or PE bag after having it wrapped with bubble sheet or pads.
3. Regarding fragile products, we usually pack with bubble bag/sleet or a thick box to have it better protected.
