When thinking about shipping your fragile items, you must make sure to put into account that shipping fragile items tend to be a more expensive than shipping something not as fragile. Fragile products do take more dunnage and better packaging to pack them in in order to keep the products from being damaged during delivery. Packing and shipping a frisbee will be much cheaper than shipping a ceramic plate. Although they are similar shapes and weight, the ceramic plate will take more shipping materials to ensure it makes it to its destination. You also might want to pay more money for extra insurance, special handling or air rather than ground shipping.
Even though it might cost more to provide that protection when shipping fragile items, it will ultimately cost more if you don’t pack the items protectively. Every time a package arrives damaged, you lose a customer. It will be worth the amount of money you put towards keeping your products intact. Along with that, you will not only lose a customer, but you will have to pay for return shipping. Then if they want a new order you will have to pay for the shipping on that one as well and lose profits on that product.
One of the most important factors in creating your ecommerce business is trust. When someone orders your product for your online store that they can’t see before they purchase it, they are trusting that this product will show up in perfect condition and works. Opening a package to find the item you were so excited about is broken is an incredibly sad unboxing experience. An occasional shipping damage will happen, nobody’s perfect. If it happens a lot, you will ultimately lose your customers. It usually costs more to get a new customer than it is to retain an old one.
You have multiple options to use to help you pay for the extra costs. You could add the costs to the actual price of the product. Or turn to your eCommerce fulfillment company. Your 3Pl might be able to help you get a cheaper rate on shipping. Us 3PLs have great connections with the carriers. I’m sure we could help you out. You can always reach out to us with any questions you might have. We are more than willing to assist you.