Electronic items require extensive care while shipping for distribution. They are usually expensive and sensitive items that pose several challenges to distributors, compared to ordinary items like textiles.
Many factors like movement, g-forces, and temperature can damage the sensitive parts of electronic items and render the products useless. Just labeling the product ‘fragile’ doesn’t warrant the safe handling and shipment of your product.
However, there are several measures you can take to ensure the safe delivery of your electronic products. By taking the necessary precautions for packing your products, you can significantly reduce the expensive damaged and returns of your product.
How to Make Your Packages Effective
It’s essential to design your packages in a way that ensures the safety of your electronic products. Here, we’ll mention some key tips that’ll go a long way in your product’s safe distribution and delivery.
Protect the Batteries
Various electronic items come with rechargeable batteries. If your product is one of those, it likely has Lithium-ion batteries that are powerful batteries needed to charge most modern electronic items. They hold significantly more power than typical dry cells.
Lithium-ion batteries, if not properly secured, are vulnerable to sparks, particularly via air. You wouldn’t want your products to cause a spark and explode and cause unimaginable damage. For safe delivery of your items, make sure to remove the batteries and package them separately.
The exposed terminals of the batteries should be completely protected, so for optimum safety, each battery should be separately covered in an insulating material.
Take Care of Sensitivities
Different types of electronic items require specific packaging designs for their protection. While some everyday electronic items can withstand ordinary packaging, electronic items with sensitive components require special safety precautions to protect them from damage.
Some electronic items such as aeronautical parts and scientific equipment are extremely sensitive to g-force, whose g-factor falls between 15-25. Meanwhile, an average television is considered less fragile to g-factor, ranging between 60–85.
The lesser the g-factor rating, the higher is the need to protect them from g-forces that could damage them. Always remember to check the g-factor number before you design packaging to deliver your electronic product safely.
EMI/RF frequencies can cause electronic items sensitive to such frequencies to malfunction, making them useless. Aluminum shielding is used to protect such items from harmful frequencies.
Some items come up with accessories like charging chords that can damage the electronic item from the movement and rubbing. It’s best to wrap each chord separately in the container. By labeling each chord, it helps in identifying the specific chord later.
Packaging Materials
Cutting your costs when selecting the appropriate packaging material is the last thing you’d want to do. Low-quality materials pose high risks to exposure and damage to your valuable electronic items. It’s imperative to carefully analyze the requirements of each item and then make an informed decision on the right mater packaging material. Some of the general packing materials for electronic items are:
Strong Boxes: For the shipment of ordinary items, cardboard boxes provide enough strength for a safe delivery in most cases. However, when dealing with electronic items, special considerations for a suitable container should be taken. Compared to cardboard cartons, a corrugated box provides enough strength and water resistance to withstand collapses and water. Its sturdy and reusable nature allows for an ideal cover box for packing most electronic items.
Void Fillers: Due to the different shapes and sizes electronic items come in, you won’t always find an appropriately-sized box to pack them in. Most of the time, there’s space left inside the container which needs to be filled. You can use several materials to safely fill up, like bubble wraps, air pillows, and packing peanuts. Make sure you don’t use paper as fillers as it can’t hold its shape.
Water Activated Tape: You need to ensure your packaging box is properly sealed and doesn’t open easily. A tape that activates adhesive with water is an ideal choice for strong bonding. Also, it leaves permanent marks if opened to provide more assurance to your packages.
Abiding by the Regulations
When packaging the products, it’s important to abide by domestic and international standards, especially the regulations of the country of destination. If your packages fall short of their laws, they most likely will be returned to you.
You can consult several websites to better understand the shipping regulations. Some of them are USPS, U.S Customs, and Federal Motor Carriers & Safety Administration.
You also need to take a keen look at the product description and instructions on how to package and deliver it safely to keep its warranty intact. Be sure to check websites like EverySpec for specifications for each product.
Keep in mind that each country has its custom regulations, so always thoroughly check them before packing your shipment. In some countries, the fee imposed on each item depends on the value of the particular electronic, so plan your shipment accordingly.
Insuring Your Shipment
With advancements in technology, the reliability of shipments safely delivering your products has increased many folds, both via air transit and sea route. However, you can never be too sure, and things can go wrong at any time. Parcel insurance provides an easy solution to ensure your items in case of accidents or damage to your shipment.
Third-party insurance companies provide additional insurance to your packages. Mostly they’re affordable and flexible to suit your needs.
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