Ecommerce Fulfillment Services Offer More Efficient Packaging

Speed, accuracy, and adaptability are all required for providing effective ecommerce fulfillment services to high-volume ecommerce companies. This combination of essential traits can be a challenge to achieve, yet experienced companies like Heritage Pioneer have the expertise to incorporate such pivotal methods as packaging automation into their operating plan with skill and good judgment, which enables them to creatively meet the challenge. With the burgeoning demand for products in the high-speed world of the emarketplace, the consumer’s consequent impatience with delays, purchase minimums, and other such inconveniences and restrictions places an even greater burden on companies that provide these services to maintain flexibility amid high quotas, exacting expectations, and abbreviated deadlines. And while this requires continued vigilance, a fluid planning process, and continuously evolving business practices, modern automation methods and equipment provide the basic technology on which the entire process is built.

Two of the Most Challenging Packing Operations

Two of the greatest challenges ecommerce fulfillment services face are achieving smooth, efficient setup and bottom sealing of shipping cases and trouble-free product cushioning/void fill processes. Handling either of these functions manually would be slow and would result in non-standardization of both quality and output. This is why companies look to automation to provide the speed, efficiency, and overall quality of the packaging products and processes that determine the success of their pick and pack functions. Productivity is key in these high-volume packaging environments, and a combination of automation and/or semi-automation and vigilant oversight are the winning formula.

Types of Automation Ecommerce Fulfillment Services Use

Automation is used for both case forming and adding fill to the packages for protective cushioning, stabilization, and prevention of product movement inside the carton during shipping. Case forming equipment is commonly used by ecommerce fulfillment services because it allows quick, easy setup and squaring off of shipping boxes in quantities that could never be achieved within acceptable time limits manually. Often, this automated equipment will also apply a pressure-sensitive sealing tape to the bottom of the box for greater strength and durability. Once items have been inserted into packing boxes, the next phase of packaging begins and the automated fill-dispensing equipment delivers a pre-set amount of fill or dispenses a quantity of fill at a pre-determined rate, filling each box as it moves along a conveyor on arrival from the packing line. Packing materials used in this process vary depending on the nature and sturdiness of the products being shipped. Such items as foam packing peanuts, bubble cushioning material, paper, chemical packaging foam, flexible plastic foams, and inflatable air bags each serve a somewhat specialized function in ensuring the safety of shipped products and cutting down on returns due to damage that can occur while products are in transit. Link back to the Ecommerce Fulfillment Services page.

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