4 Key Considerations When Shipping Heavy Automotive Parts

Getting heavy automotive parts to your customers safely and securely can be challenging. From engines to hubcaps to transmissions or wheels, it's important to choose the right shipping materials  that can withstand the weight. In this post, we cover 4 key shipping details to consider to ensure that your car parts and packaging all stay intact during transit. 

1. Make Sure Your Car Parts Are Actually Ready For Shipping

While seemingly obvious, this step may be overlooked when preparing a carton for shipment. For example, automotive parts that hold fluids should be drained completely.

Damage from a fluid leak in your package could cause your shipment to be held up at a shipping terminal. And a late package can truly negatively affect the lifetime value of your customers.

Draining parts of all fluids will save you time and money by reducing product damage and keeping your customers happy with on-time deliveries. 

2. Follow Best Practices for Shipping Car Parts

Here are some basic guidelines to follow when packaging bulky car parts for shipment:

• ✔ Make sure the product is properly cushioned inside the carton, especially when dealing with fragile components.
• ✔ In addition to cushioning, padding should be added to all sharp edges to prevent these components from penetrating the box.
• ✔ To avoid potential damage to smaller items due to movement within the carton, be sure to fill any extra space with material such as air pillows or paper void fill.
• ✔ UPS recommends in their automotive parts guide, that you "enclose items like plastic moldings and small, loose components in plastic pouches."
• ✔ Make sure the carton or box that you are using is a good fit for the product being shipped. This will help keep your costs low when shipping.

With the advent of “dimensional weight” shipping, it’s not just the weight of your part that matters. It’s also the size of the part or – more precisely – the size of the package.

- SporkMarketing

3. Choose Your Shipping Cartons Wisely

Using the appropriate type of carton to ship heavy automotive parts is critical. 

Although corrugated cartons and cardboard boxes tend to look similar, corrugated cartons are more durable. 

Corrugate is comprised of three layers of paper that include an inside liner, an outside liner, and fluting with a ruffled shape, which runs in between the two. 

When formed into boxes, corrugated sheets are ideal for shipping heavy items because they are strong, durable, and easily recycled.

Goods shipped in corrugated cartons are less likely to be damaged in shipment than those shipped in cardboard boxes.

4. Use a Strong, Tamper-Evident Packaging Tape

Maximize the strength and security of your corrugate by using reinforced water-activated tape to seal your carton.

Reinforced water-activated tape contains fiberglass which provides extraordinary strength to the tape, thereby protecting your shipped products.

When activated with water, gummed paper tape penetrates the carton material and the tape forms a permanent bond with the carton and creating a tamper-evident seal.

Water-activated tape fits the bill for a host of automotive and automotive aftermarket companies that want their products to arrive at a customer’s business or home intact.  

Want to know if water activated tape is right for your automotive company? Request a free sample by clicking the image below. 

[This post republished from the Better Packages Blog]

Automotive E-Commerce Growth & The Challenge of Packaging

The online retail market for aftermarket automotive parts and accessories continues to grow at a rapid rate. In fact, according to findings from Hedges & Company, auto parts sales influenced by digital is likely to grow to $152 billion by 2021.

This means that the challenges associated with packaging and shipping automotive parts and supplies need to be addressed quickly and efficiently.

Why Are Buyers Shifting To Purchasing Parts Online?

There are four main benefits of buying aftermarket automobile parts online:

• ✔ Easy access a wide selection of parts
• ✔ Cost savings
• ✔ Ability to price compare
• ✔ Time savings

Simply put, the convenience of e-commerce and modern shop management systems have made it easier to purchase parts online, compared with traditional, over-the-phone ordering. 

Consumers appreciate the information and price transparency available on online because local garages have often held an unfortunate reputation of being vague in their pricing and pricing methods, as well as in their product descriptions.

Proper Packaging is Key

Online shoppers buying auto parts employ ship-to-store 55% of the time, a 14% increase from the prior year. This is part of a growing trend toward increased convenience and “no-cost, ship-to-store pricing," according to data from V12. 

For the remaining 45% that opt to have their automotive parts shipped to their home or place of business, there are unique challenges to address.

Aftermarket automotive parts can be anything from replacement windshields to fenders or headlights. Each product requires unique protective packaging to prevent damage during shipment. 

When car enthusiasts make purchases for their vehicles, they expect the parts to arrive in pristine condition — any imperfection is simply unacceptable.

If parts are damaged during transit due to poor packaging, a costly returns process may be initiated by the buyer. 

Depending on the application and final destination, there’s an array of materials and techniques that can be used to create the best packaging solution for your products. 

Some of these solutions include:

• ✔ Plastic corrugated partitions lined with foam
• ✔ Heat-sealed bubble pouches
• ✔ Films to protect against scratching, marring and abrasion
• ✔ Water-activated tape for a strong, secure seal

Choose Efficient Packaging Methods

When shipping automotive parts, packagers’ top concerns and considerations typically include the speed and flexibility of the carton sealing equipment, and the durability and overall quality of the shipping carton and tape being used.

Ensuring that efficient solutions are in place for your packing stations will help increase productivity, employee happiness, and improve overall time to delivery for each package. 

Water-activated tape and electric tape dispensers are ideal for pick-and-pack operations. The electric dispensers feed and cut the exact length of tape needed to seal assorted sizes of cartons with just the touch of a button. 

Because water-activated tape creates a strong bond with the shipping carton, only one strip of tape is needed to securely seal the carton - increasing packer efficiency. 

Additionally, when using water-activated tape (also commonly known as gummed paper tape) you have the option to add branding to the tape itself, to further increase brand awareness as your product goes through the delivery process and waits on your customer’s porch.

Better Packages is Here to Help

As you work through the challenges of increasing e-commerce demand for automotive aftermarket parts, we’re here to help. 

Check out our Automotive Aftermarket Parts Packaging Guide today.

[This post republished from the Better Packages Blog]

Why WAT is the Best Choice for Automotive Aftermarket Retailers

Are you meeting your customers’ expectations? The automotive experts (whether they are professionals or enthusiastic amateurs) who use aftermarket parts and accessories to repair or enhance their vehicles are people who value quality workmanship. Not only do they have high standards for their own projects, they apply those standards to the vendors they work with. They expect the packages they receive from automotive aftermarket retailers to reflect the investment they made in the parts.

If you are not ensuring that your merchandise arrives in excellent condition, you may be losing business. And in a highly competitive industry like automotive parts, even a few shipping mistakes can have a long-term impact on your reputation and your success.

As an automotive retailer, you know that shipping parts is difficult. So, how do you create a positive impression with the customer who receives your shipment? It starts with using quality packing materials and practices. That means you need to choose high-quality cartons that are the right size and shape for the items you are shipping. It also means you need to be sealing them in a way that looks neat and clean, and that keeps them secured until they are opened by the recipient.

“In a highly competitive industry like automotive parts, even a few shipping mistakes can have a long-term impact on your reputation and your success.” TWEET THIS

Why Successful Automotive Aftermarket Retailers Use Water-Activated Tape

To succeed as an automotive aftermarket parts retailer, you can’t leave anything to chance. Using whatever materials you have lying around in the warehouse to package your merchandise and then hoping that the items arrive undamaged is not a good strategy. Instead, you need to look closely at your shipping practices to see what you are doing well and what you could be doing better.

For many companies, a significant source of issues is how they seal their packages. Some types of tape simply don’t produce the results needed. What these companies discover when they do a little research is that water-activated tape (WAT) delivers benefits on many levels.

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Interested in learning about an automotive company that made the switch? Read our case study.

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First, WAT (also called paper tape, gummed tape, and Kraft tape) helps automotive aftermarket retailers address their physical packing challenges. Its strong seal keeps packages from opening accidentally during shipment and protects their contents. The physical bond it creates with the carton’s surface is also tamper-evident, which helps prevent “press and grab” thefts.

WAT is also a very cost-effective option for sealing packages. Its one-strip-sealing capability means you use less of it as compared to other types of tape. And, a high-quality water-activated tape dispenser will last for many years, producing significant return on your investment.

Finally, WAT can help you present a polished image that impresses your customers. Packages sealed with WAT have a “finished” look that is difficult to achieve with other tape. Plus, WAT can be printed with your logo or other branding to help spread the word about your company. This lets you do some “mobile advertising” without having to pay for expensive printed boxes. And, ultimately it can create a positive loop: as people see the cartons with your branding and check out your offerings online, your business grows and you ship more cartons, which are seen by even more people… and so it goes.

Leveraging Every Competitive Advantage

When you look at the business leaders in any industry, it is the companies that pay attention to the details that are at the top of the list. Automotive aftermarket retailers are no different. From saving money to creating brand awareness, the way you ship your merchandise can have a positive impact on your business. And, it is easy to make changes to your shipping procedures to start capitalizing on the many benefits of water-activated tape.

If you have questions about our water-activated tape, water-activated tape dispensers, and other products for the packing and shipping of automotive aftermarket parts, please contact us at your convenience.

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[This post republished from the Better Packages Blog]

How to Save Money When Shipping Automotive Parts

If you are an online automotive aftermarket retailer, you don’t need anyone to tell you that your industry is highly competitive and getting more so every day. How can you gain a strategic advantage in this environment? One way is to reduce your expenses, which gives you more capital for everything from expanding your product line to doing more marketing.

What’s a surefire method for cutting back on expenses? Lowering your shipping costs.

This expenditure tends to be significant for online automotive retailers because the items they shipare often:

• ✔ Heavy
• ✔ Oversized
• ✔ Unevenly weighted
• ✔ Irregularly shaped
• ✔ Fragile
• ✔ Susceptible to scuffing or scratching

Or, some combination of the above. And since these businesses can’t change the physical characteristics of their merchandise, they need to pay special attention to how they pack and ship it their automotive parts.

“As much as any other type of online retailer, companies in the automotive aftermarket space can improve their bottom line by lowering their shipping costs.” TWEET THIS

Proven Strategies for Minimizing Shipping Costs

For online automotive aftermarket retailers, the fastest way to grow the bottom line is to increase sales while simultaneously decreasing costs. While your marketing and sales teams are working on the first task, your shipping team can be working on the second. Here’s how:

1. Negotiate an advantageous rate with your shipper. There are many factors you can use to bring your shipper to the bargaining table, including your growing shipping volumes or a quote from a competitor.
2. Find ways to reduce package weight. When it comes to shipping costs, every ounce counts. You can minimize the weight of your packages by:
• ✔ Using strong, lightweight corrugated cartons
• ✔ Selecting cartons that are just big enough to do the job
• ✔ Using a carton custom designed for the item
• ✔ Filling empty spaces in cartons with lightweight packing material
• ✔ Using customized foam inserts
• ✔ Sealing packages with a single strip of strong water-activated tape (WAT)
3. Eliminate expensive printed boxes. WAT (also known as gummed tape, Kraft tape, or paper tape) can be printed with your branding, making it a cost-effective way to increase brand awareness.
4. Minimize theft. Another benefit of sealing packages with WAT is that the durable, tamper-evident bond it creates helps keep thieves from pressing in the top of a carton and removing items in a way that isn’t detected until later.
5. Increase packing station productivity and safety with a UL-listed water-activated tape dispenser. These devices make it easy for shipping staff to get exactly the amount of tape they need quickly and efficiently. Plus, they help prevent repetitive motion injuries.
6. Keep adequate supplies on hand. Having to rush order shipping supplies to meet customer demand because you let your inventory of cartons, tape, and packing material dwindle can be very costly. Be sure that someone on your shipping team is tasked with keeping an eye on supply levels.
7. Minimize returns. Any time a customer must return an item, your shipping costs increase. In fact, they may triple if you must pay the shipping cost on the returned item and then send out a replacement. In addition to properly packing items so they arrive in good condition, you should also have processes in place to ensure that the correct items are shipped in the first place.

Immediate Improvement in Your Financial Performance

The great thing about cost cutting to improve your bottom line is that it is completely within your control. Your ability to attract new customers and grow sales is affected by several market dynamics, but you can start reducing your shipping costs today. All it takes is a little time and effort to assess your shipping practices and make the necessary modifications. Then you can enjoy the financial benefits from that point forward.

If you have questions about our water-activated tape, water-activated tape dispensers, and other products for the packing and shipping of automotive aftermarket parts, please contact us at your convenience.

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[This post republished from the Better Packages Blog]

Top 5 Reasons Why Shipping Automotive Parts is Difficult

Driven by forces like a fast-growing world population and the fact that vehicles are staying on the road longer than ever before, the global automotive aftermarket is expanding rapidly. In fact, it is expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2022 according to Global Industry Analysts.

If you are an online auto parts retailer, that’s surely great news to hear. However, as your sales volumes rise, it becomes increasingly clear that you face significant challenges when it comes packaging and shipping your merchandise.

“As your sales volumes rise, it becomes increasingly clear that you face significant challenges when it comes packaging and shipping your merchandise.” TWEET THIS

Why Automotive Aftermarket Parts are Difficult to Ship

To keep capitalizing on market growth, you’ve got to ensure that your merchandise continues to arrive at its destination undamaged and in packaging that creates a positive first impression. To do that, you’ve got to give consideration to what makes automotive aftermarket parts so hard to ship so you can address those challenges.

The characteristics of auto parts that create packaging and shipping challenges include that they are:

• ✔ Large and heavy. How will your packaging support items like tires and engine components that can weigh hundreds of pounds? How will you box items that may not be excessively heavy but are big in size? You need to have good answers for these questions to ensure that your pick and pack operations are efficient and that the items arrive to the customer in good condition.
• ✔ Irregularly shaped. Items like bumpers don’t fit well into any standard-size carton. Will you use a box large enough to accommodate the bumper and simply fill all the empty space with packing material? Or, will you have a shipping carton custom made?
• ✔ Unevenly weighted. Some automotive parts pose interesting challenges because they are much heavier on one end than the other. As you pack them, you have to consider how they will be lifted and moved safely by your team and the shipper. 
• ✔ Easily scratched. When the customer opens a package to look at the item they’ve ordered that is finished in gleaming chrome, the last thing they want to see is an ugly scratch. These kinds of parts need to be handled with special care and properly covered and padded in the carton.
• ✔ Fragile. At the other end of the spectrum from the large, heavy items you may sell, are the smaller and more fragile components. It’s critical that you protect them properly to avoid costly returns.
• ✔ Hazardous. Automotive parts that contain hazardous materials such as fluids that are flammable or caustic require special precautions and shipping procedures.

And, of course, as you look at the list above, it’s clear that adding to the “degree of difficulty” in shipping automotive parts is the variety of items that many retailers sell—large to small, nearly indestructible to very breakable, and everything in between.

Fortunately, there are packing best practices that cover items of all kinds. These strategies include using durable, lightweight, corrugated cartons to help protect items while keeping shipping weights down. And for sealing those cartons, strong water-activated tape (WAT) that creates a physical bond with the carton’s surface is an excellent choice. Not only can WAT seal packages with one neat strip, it can be printed with your logo or other branding elements to help generate brand awareness. 

The Final Challenge: Selecting the Right Shipper

No discussion of shipping challenges would be complete without mentioning that choosing the right shipper is critical. Will they handle your packages with care? Do they meet their time commitments, especially with rush shipments? There are many resources online that you can use to evaluate shippers and select the one (or ones) that will best meet your needs.

If you have questions about how our water-activated tape, water-activated tape dispensers, and other products can add value to your automotive aftermarket part shipping processes, please contact us.

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[This post republished from the Better Packages Blog]

Proper Packaging: A Key to Success in the Automotive Aftermarket

A great way to grow your automotive aftermarket business — or any business — is to deliver an exceptional customer experience. In fact, as Forbes notes, it may be the best way to expand your business. The article quotes a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey in which 73 percent of consumers said customer experience is a significant factor in their purchasing decisions. But, only 49 percent of those surveyed believe companies today provide a good customer experience.

In other words, if you aren’t meeting your customers’ expectations, you are surely losing business. One pivotal moment in the customer experience occurs when the recipient opens the package you shipped to them and inspects the contents. If that process doesn’t go well, you have a problem. Proper packaging of your automotive aftermarket parts is crucial to the start or continuation of a positive relationship.

“One of the pivotal moments in the customer experience occurs when the recipient opens the package you shipped to them and inspects the contents. If that process doesn’t go well, you have a problem.” TWEET THIS

What Careful Packaging Delivers

Proper packaging of automotive aftermarket parts creates some general goodwill.  However, you may be wondering how, specifically, does it help your business? There are several ways, including:

• ✔ Fewer returns. Ensuring that your merchandise is adequately protected during shipping means less damage and fewer returns. And those two factors combine to help improve your bottom line, both by reducing product costs and the labor associated with processing returns or exchanges.
• ✔ Less theft. Sealing your shipping cartons with water-activated tape (WAT), which creates a secure, tamper-evident bond, helps reduce theft and the associated expense.
• ✔ Positive reviews. People tend to give a lot of weight to the experiences of others when it comes to selecting a company with which to do business. A handful of positive reviews on your website can be a contributing factor to many future sales.
• ✔ Increased brand awareness. WAT can be branded with your company name, logo, etc. When you seal your packages with branded WAT, everyone from the shipping company staff to neighbors who see the package on the recipient's front porch become more familiar with your company.
• ✔ Social media shares. Social media platforms have made it easy for one person to express their opinion to potentially millions of others around the world with just a few keystrokes. If what they share is their satisfaction with the parts they received, it can give your company a tremendous boost. If their post describes an unpleasant experience — potentially with a picture just to drive the point home — your sales may suffer.
• ✔ Repeat sales. It’s a business truism that the easiest person to sell to is the one that’s already a happy customer. When a neat, secure, beautifully branded package arrives with well-protected parts inside, you are already well on your way to repeat business.

Small Investment. Big Return.

It’s understandable that some companies say, “It’s the superior quality of our merchandise that matters. How it gets to the customer is unimportant.” Obviously, the first part of that statement is true. You have to sell an excellent product to succeed in business.

However, both personal experience and customer satisfaction surveys will tell you that the second part of the statement simply isn’t true. A customer’s perception at the moment they receive a package can affect their opinion of your company from that point forward. A small investment in time and effort regarding the packaging of your automotive aftermarket parts can deliver big long-term returns.

How can our water-activated tape, water-activated tape dispensers, and other products play a role in helping you impress your customers? We’re happy to tell you how our many satisfied clients are benefitting from them. Please contact us at your convenience.

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[This post republished from the Better Packages Blog]

American® Tape Celebrates 65 Years!

Founded in 1953 by Chris Kurzweil Sr. in Port Huron, Michigan, American Tape grew moderately in its first ten years while providing a paper masking tape line to the automotive manufacturing firms in the Midwest.

Founded in 1953 by Chris Kurzweil, Sr in Port Huron, Michigan

After moving to Marysville, Michigan in 1963, American Tape expanded and changed ownership several times until joining the IPG family in 1997 (while retaining the American® brand name). Today, IPG Marysville produces a large variety of masking tapes, flatback and reinforced (filament) tapes sold around the world. The high temp masking tapes are still highly recognized and well known in the Automotive Market.

During WW2, IPG Marysville's current location was a magnesium plant owned by a defense corporation

The plant consists of several coating lines and slitters, along with equipment to mix and make adhesives. Approximately 250 employees represent IPG Marysville, ranging from Manufacturing and Shipping, to R&D, Accounting, IT, Purchasing, Engineering, Marketing, Customer Service and more.

Timeline

1953 – American Tape founded by Chris Kurzweil, Sr in Port Huron, Michigan
1963 – Moved to Marysville, Michigan for expansion
1965 – Purchased by Armour & Company
1969 – Purchased by Greyhound – name changed to Armour Greyhound
1971 – Sold to Akzona – name changed to Armak
1983 – Sold to private investors including Chris Kurzweil, Jr – name changed back to American Tape
1990 – Sold to Seoul Trading Company (STC) – still called American Tape
1997 – American Tape joins IPG family – name changed to Intertape Polymer Group but American Tape brand is retained
2018 – American Tape turns 65!