It isn’t just customer satisfaction that you have to think about when you are shipping your goods.
Even if goods are just going a couple of miles, the safety of the shipment is essential and regulatory compliance must be adhered to. Otherwise you can face stiff penalties and possible financial repercussions (see also Amazon and their shipping of unsafe batteries).
Knowing how to ensure that you are shipping your products safely and within the guidelines set out by local and national governments can be difficult. Laws and regulations change all the time and in some instances, you may believe that you know the safety regulations for your products but not realise there is a local law that is different.
So how can you ensure safe shipping and regulatory compliance?
Here are our three best solutions:
1. Contact Local Trade Organisations
If there is one organization that is likely to know what the local safe shipping and regulatory compliance is going to be, then it is going to be the local trade organizations. They will have an adviser that will be more than ready to answer your questions on any regulations.
The problem with this approach is that it can be rather time consuming, especially when you have a lot of orders in different territories.
The more time that is spent confirming shipping and regulatory compliance responsibilities, the more time of your team that is being wasted and the less productive they are.
Therefore, this is only really a practical option if you have the majority of your orders in one territory and are sometimes challenged by orders in another territory.
2. Test Your Products
When you know what the requirements are in your delivery areas, then you have a chance to ensure that you always meet them by testing products yourself.
You could test by doing the drop test. This is where you package your products and test them by dropping them from a significant height, at least 4 foot. Then you open up the product to see what, if any, damage has been done to the product.
It is very important that you consider dropping the item on its weakest points, such as corners or joints, as the .gif above shows. This ensures that you are thoroughly testing your packaging and allows you to assess what would happen should a product slip and fall during shipping.
If the product has been damaged then you haven’t got a safely packaged item and you need to reconsider your packaging. This is especially important if you have any liquids or resins that could leak out of a product.
3. Partner With A Good Logistics Company
The final option for adhering to safe shipping and regulatory compliance is to partner yourself with a strong logistics company.
Not only will they know and understand the local regulations for numerous territories, they will also be up-to-date with any changes.
Additionally, they will know from experience how best to package items so they won’t break. This will help during the testing phase.
There will also be other ways that a logistics company can support your fulfilment. They can reduce your packaging and fulfilment costs, as well as provide you with a speedy delivery over a wider network, than you could without their support.
Conclusion
There are many different ways that you can ensure your ecommerce business adheres to safe shipping and regulatory responsibilities.
While some of these are lengthy chores, some of them, such as partnering with a logistics company, can help you save time, adhere to regulations and save you money during the whole process.
- How do you ensure safe shipping and regulatory compliance?
- Have you ever not met those requirements for your ecommerce business?
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