Good packaging protects your product, keeps your shipping costs predictable, and satisfies the requirements of the markets you ship into. This article covers the practices that apply everywhere, and what to have in place before you ship to the EU.
Right-size your packaging
Use no more packaging than the product needs for protection. Oversized cartons cost more on dimensional weight and let products move around in transit, which drives damage claims.
Record dimensions and weight for every SKU, not just your bestsellers.
Look at what actually ships together. Most catalogs come down to a handful of common configurations.
Keep a small, deliberate range. Three to five carton sizes plus one or two mailer sizes usually beats a dozen ad hoc options.
Review after any catalog change, new bundle, or new packaging supplier.
TIP: See Creating Packing SOPs for Fulfillment for how to write your SOP, and Custom Packaging and Branded Inserts for supported packaging types and how to get materials to the warehouse.
Choose materials that recycle
Recyclability requirements are being introduced in many markets. The choices that meet them are usually the same ones that keep packaging simple and cheap to source.
Prefer a single material. An all-corrugate box or a single-polymer mailer recycles cleanly, mixed laminates and metallised films usually do not.
Make components easy to separate, or avoid combinations that are not.
Keep inks, coatings, and adhesives light. Heavy coverage can push a package below a recyclability threshold.
Drop layers that are not doing work: double walls, false bottoms, decorative sleeves.
Ask your supplier for material composition and recycled content at the quoting stage, not after you have committed.
NOTE: Packaging sold into the EU is subject to limits on heavy metals, and on PFAS in food-contact packaging. Check mailers, tape, void fill, labels, and inks, not just the primary box, since these substances usually turn up in coatings and pigments. Ask your packaging manufacturer for lab test reports and keep them on file.
Barcode your packaging
Without a barcode, the order record does not show whether a parcel shipped in a poly bag or a box, so shipping has to be calculated from assumed packaging dimensions. That can add volumetric weight to parcels that never took up the space.
Shipping to the EU
EU packaging rules require the business selling into the market to be registered and to hold documentation for its packaging. Portless cannot do this on your behalf.
Register for packaging producer responsibility in every EU country you sell into. There is no EU-wide registration, and requirements vary by country.
Appoint an Authorised Representative in each of those countries if your business is not established in the EU. You generally cannot register directly otherwise.
Hold a Declaration of Conformity for each packaging format. If the packaging carries your brand or trademark, you issue it, using lab test reports from your supplier on materials and restricted substances. For generic or stock packaging, your supplier issues it and you get a copy.
Keep the declaration yourself for 5 years (single-use packaging) or 10 years (reusable), ready for market surveillance authorities on request. Send us a copy too, but our copy does not replace your own record.
Supply your packaging registration number to every marketplace you sell on. Without it, marketplaces cannot let you sell into that country: new listings will not go live, and existing ones can be suspended.
Keep packaging to the minimum weight and volume needed to protect the product.
TIP: Not sure where you stand? Talk to your CSM. We can review your packaging specs and point you to what is needed for the countries you sell into.