5 Ways to Reduce Your Packaging Costs

If you own a business, you might be seeing all of your costs and overheads increasing right now. Everywhere you look, prices are going up. It’s hard not to respond by passing on those cost increases to your own customers. And in some cases, you might need to. But now’s a good time to review your supply chain and discover any opportunities to reduce your costs.

Businesses of all shapes and sizes are looking to make savings wherever they can. Inefficient packaging could be costing you more than you think. According to Chris Clarke, Marketing Manager at Springpack, there are several key packaging costs all businesses need to be thinking about:

•      Packaging Materials– this is everything that makes up your product packaging
•      Shipping– the transit costs of receiving and delivering your packaging
•      Storage– the associated warehouse costs for keeping the packaging in storage
•      Inserts– this includes all the additional marketing materials that you include in your packages
•      Labour– the man-hours involved in your packaging operation

But How can Businesses Reduce These Costs?

1. Packaging Audit
   

If you’re not sure where to start, speak to the experts. Packaging companies will often offer free packaging audits to help you streamline your operation and offer creative solutions. If your business has been growing steadily for a few years, this might be the best place to start. A fresh pair of eyes to analyse your operation is often the best approach.

2. Shipping & Deliveries
   

You can also look to reduce your shipping costs. Consider offering your customers incentives for placing larger orders. This will reduce small, repeat orders that result in you racking up the miles. Or, invest in delivery route planning software to cut the number of miles you’re driving.

3. Packaging Materials
   

One of the simplest ways to reduce packaging costs is to streamline your packaging operation by standardising the packaging materials you use. For example, if you’re an eCommerce retailer selling similarly sized items, could you just stock one size postal box, rather than two or three? You can use a straightforward void-fill solution to make sure your boxes are suitable for all items.

And don’t think this tactic is purely for small eCommerce businesses with just a handful of products. Large international businesses also benefit hugely from standardising their packaging.

As well as reducing your costs, this will also make your stock management a much simpler operation.

4. Eliminate Plastic
   

For decades, plastic has been a low-cost solution for businesses all over the world. And it is an incredible material. But businesses are learning to wean themselves off single-use plastics. Or at the very least, greatly reduce how much plastic they use.

In the UK, the government has recently introduced a new plastic packaging tax. This means that businesses that use plastic packaging which contains less than 30% of recycled plastic will face a tax charge of £200 per tonne. So if your business is using a lot of plastic packaging, now there’s time to consider switching to eco-friendly solutions instead.

5. Automation
   

If your packaging process is all done manually, you may save money in the long run by investing in automation. Not only does automation speed up the packaging process, but by using specially designed machines, you’ll also minimise wastage.

Whichever way you decide is best to reduce your packaging costs, there’s never been a better time to do so. Just starting with a packaging audit would be a great start. You may be surprised how much you could save.