They were so confident we decided to put their packaging to a real life test and post an egg through the Royal Mail. It’s arrived. Now we can truly answer the question “Will it break”.
We posted the parcel second class postage and as expected it duly showed up with my Postie on Saturday.
Whilst there’s no serious damage to the box, you can see a distinct crease down the left hand side showing it’s been suitably abused by the postal system – something heavy has probably bounced around on it whilst in a post bag in the back of a Royal Mail truck. That’s good, we wanted a real life test!
Opening up the box revealed the Sealed Air Instapak® Simple™ packaging, basically a bag of foam which when popped inside the box expands to protect the contents. What we’re interested in however is what’s inside the Instapak, is the egg intact?
Did it break?
We’re pleased to report that once the foam was removed there was our egg with Professor Packaging’s signature. It had safely made it from Birmingham Airport through the Royal Mail network, down to the Swindon sorting office, along the M4 to Thatcham and out with the Postie to my door.
All that was left was to dig out my favourite childhood Humpty Dumpty egg cup and sit down to breakfast courtesy of Professor Packaging and Sealed Air.
What have we learnt?
Well maybe not a lot but what we do know is that with the correct packaging practically anything can be sent through the post or via a courier. For large manufacturers this generally isn’t a problem as they’ll have custom made packaging to protect delicate items such as glass or porcelain. However if you’re a seller of antiques or second hand products you probably don’t have the original packaging (if indeed there ever was any).
There are however solutions out there that will protect delicate items and Sealed Air Instapak® Simple™ is one of them. Something to consider, especially as many carriers such as Royal Mail won’t insure glass or china objects against damage en route. What do you use to package delicate items?
14 Responses
I bet the packaging to protect the egg costs more than the egg so a bit pointless to a seller of eggs
A thought occurs to me…. I bet that egg cup is worth a few quid now!
Probably most ebay sellers use ‘peanut’ packaging to protect their goods. I have a problem. I receive parcels of books insulated with these ‘peanuts’. But I send books out usually singularly so I tend to accumulate ‘peanuts’. So if anybody in Cornwall needs them contact me and I would be very happy to donate them to the cause of saving you some money and getting them out of my way(I do hate to throw anything useful away)(and I have boxes full of them).
we have no doubt this system works, but cost is the problem,
you can buy a pretty big box and lots of bubble wrap for the price of these , the biggest cause of damage is the lack of skill in packaging not the material used
im quite lucky as i have builder friends and i use, carpet protector around my packages, which makes them watertight, its like very thick clingfilm, and is unbelievably sticky!
and also corrugated /fluted plastic sheets- again sold as carpet and door /window protection in the trade. very good for wrapping what i sell – books and similar.
the funny thing is, this is sold in door / window sized pieces for X amount (as i say i get for nowt). but the same stuff is also sold as “envelope stiffner” eg a4 sheets and is over 11x as much last time i looked!
always looking for the best balance between cost per item, and protection for my items. interesting articles.
Now try sending it with Yodel and see what happens.
Nice egg cup! doubtless the EU will make couriers responsible for packaging and force them to supply re-usable materials. Its rather arcane that so much effort has to go into packaging. Uniform sizes could revolutionise the delivery industry, a bit like it with shipping containers, and the cost saving would be huge. Then again, I liked milk in glass bottles…
I saw this in action and it looked pretty impressive. Anything like this will always be a trade off between cost and function. I am sure cost will reduce over time and believe it or not stuff like this matters to the end consumer these days.
If your goods (new goods especially) arrive in obviously hi-tech packaging you can be sure you will benefit with an uplift in brand/store loyalty.