Products travel a great distance just to get to consumers. A small company may require a shorter chain to deliver their goods, while a bigger company may need a more elaborate distribution process. Some products may even have to go through several countries just to reach their destination. No matter the size of your inventory and the number of hands involved, these steps should never be skipped:
Random Quality Testing
Once every item has been packed or bottled, they should be ready for shipping—but not before each shipment is tested for problems and discrepancies. You may not be able to see anything wrong at first glance, but it is better to catch an error instead of the customers catching it for you and potentially ruining your reputation. Choose a random container and inspect its contents for product and packaging quality. Look at its contents and seals to guarantee that they are packaged properly and tightly, which will prevent them from going bad. For products in glass packaging, make sure that you are not sending out items in chipped or compromised containers. One bad bottle in a box of 50 is enough to bring your company down if it ends up in the hands of someone hard to placate.
Efficient Loading and Unloading
You have checked the packaging and product quality, but somewhere along the transportation process, the state of goods may change without the use of an efficient loading system and dependable container unloading platforms. You can argue that unloading may be done by hand, but this brings about the question of weight and the physical limitations of your employees. It is a slow and inefficient process fraught with the possibility of dropping shipment, thus costing money and even injuring employees. An unloading platform merely needs to be set up properly to do its job with minimal supervision. It is load-tested so that it can easily handle the weight of each shipment. Granted you follow the recommended weight, its capacity to withstand that load will not diminish after hours of operation simply because it does not behave as human muscles do.
Seal Checking
Before customers even get to items packaged individually, which warn against broken seals, someone from your business should be checking boxes upon arrival. They should be in good condition, and they should not appear as if they have been lugged around haphazardly. Inspect the packaging of the boxes. If anything is suspicious, go ahead and open a box. At the end of the day, it does not matter what state the shipment left the warehouse if they reach customers looking beaten up. Customers will not believe that you have taken care of your products if they can see signs of damage. You also want to check that none of the items has been tampered with during the transportation. You attest to the quality of products you provide, but someone could use illegal tactics to sabotage the products associated with your brand. Should shipment include counterfeit items, your customers may even be in danger.
Any business worth its salt will pay attention to product logistics every step of the way. From the moment the products are packed to the second they reach customers, their integrity should not be compromised.
