Pallet packaging – 7 advantages of well-optimised boxes

If your business ships products in bulk, you may be surprised to learn that your pallet packaging, and particularly, well-optimised boxes, can dramatically impact your operations.

Pallet packaging includes large pallet boxes, smaller packs, and secondary materials such as strapping and stretch wrap. Optimising your pallet packaging can save considerable costs by increasing space efficiency, improving load density, and reducing transit damage. Pallet-optimised boxes can also improve staff productivity and safety.

This guide briefly covers the different pallet packaging types and several pallet optimisation tips. However, it also highlights seven business-critical advantages you can expect if you maximise the effectiveness of your pallet boxes.

Given its critical role in your operations, pallet optimisation (to maximise efficiency) is a topic in its own right.

However, it includes a requirement to assess your products and their packaging requirements, including the volumes you are sending. Understanding this lets you select the correct pallet dimensions (typically UK or Euro sizes).

It is essential, however, not to consider product size, pallet dimensions, and pallet packaging itself in isolation. Combining all three factors allows you to develop custom pallet boxes or bespoke pallet-optimised boxes that offer the maximum benefit.

Beyond this, you must also remember any regulatory and customer requirements and ensure you train staff to stack and load palletised packaging as efficiently as possible.

While there may be many factors to consider, getting your pallet packaging right can significantly improve your business. The advantages of using optimised boxes for your pallet packaging include:

• Improved load density and efficient space utilisation.
• A reduction in transport costs.
• Improved sustainability of your packaging.
• A reduction in secondary packaging requirements.
• Better protection for products during transit.
• Increased safety.
• Enhanced staff productivity.

Arguably, the most significant benefit of optimising your pallet packaging is improved load density, resulting in better space efficiency.

Suppose your packaging is optimised to maximise the available space on a pallet. In that case, it allows you to store more products in your available warehouse space and transport more products per shipment.

A reduction in warehouse space and even on packing lines can significantly impact your costs. Moving more products per journey (e.g., via a forklift) can also improve productivity.

As well as being achieved through size-optimised boxes, simply choosing the right pallet size and box can have a surprisingly significant impact.

As with load density and storage in your warehouse, optimised pallet packaging also helps reduce your transport costs.

Firstly, using all available space on your pallets ensures you ship the maximum number of products per shipment. This approach improves your transport efficiency, in turn lowering your costs.

Unoptimised pallet boxes often mean you are paying to transport empty space within your shipments. This inefficiency can, over time, significantly increase your costs.

Alongside transit costs, the proper pallet packaging can also improve your sustainability.

Minimising the number of journeys or loads to ship your products to customers reduces the associated CO2 emissions from transport.

Besides this, using a cardboard pallet box ensures your packaging is easy to recycle and, if working with a reputable packaging supplier, likely to use material from FSC-certified sources. Optimised boxes typically use less material, too.

The pallet packaging you choose can actually reduce the overall packaging you need.

For example, packaging that is the ideal size for your products and pallets reduces the need for additional void fill. Using an outer pallet box can eliminate the need for plastic stretch wraps (which can be difficult to recycle).

By reducing the amount of secondary packaging, you are not only reducing weight and environmental impact but also potentially reducing your costs significantly.

Alongside reduced secondary packaging, correctly sized boxes can also improve protection for goods during transit.

If a pack is too large, the product or part may move. This movement can cause the item to become damaged (typically by hitting the pack’s internal walls).

Whilst you can mitigate this issue with void fill and other secondary packaging, custom-sized transit packaging inherently minimises this.

The advantages of preventing damage in transit are numerous, including reducing returns and associated costs, increasing customer satisfaction, and building a reputation for reliability.

Packaging designed without consideration for pallet use can pose health and safety issues.

Poor stacking and weight distribution can make boxes likely to shift or even topple off the pallet, resulting in potential injury (as well as damage to the products).

Packaging that is difficult to load or unload can also lead to poor manual handling practices.

You can address these issues, however, with well-optimised pallet boxes, and optimising your packaging can even go so far as to include relevant handling symbols and instructions.

Finally, improvements to your packaging can also increase staff productivity.

Packs that are easy to load or stack on pallets allow staff to process more units in the same time. Reducing secondary packaging and its processes (e.g., adding void fill) also helps speed up packing times.

Choosing the right pallets can also improve forklift operator manoeuvrability and the speed of pallet retrieval from warehouse racking or other storage locations.

Pallet boxes have several inherent benefits for specific applications. They are easy to handle (with forklifts or pallet trucks), widely accepted by most businesses and transport providers, typically recyclable, and often reusable.

But pallet packaging that is truly optimised can deliver significant benefits for your business, including cost savings, improved usability, and even sustainability.

At GWP, we have a team of experts with vast experience in maximising the effectiveness of all types of packaging, including pallet boxes, export packaging, heavy-duty, and even timber shipping crates. So, if you require assistance optimising your pallet packaging, please do not hesitate to get in touch.