Businesses invest a lot of time and money in trying to find the perfect formula to protect their products while in transit. Failure to protect products can lead to high volumes of waste, disappointed customers and brand devaluation. However, balancing the demands of product protection, shipment space and cost of packaging isn’t easy.

Here, we consider the best way to protect your products from damage during transit.

1. Protect your products

Before packaging your products you need to protect them to give them the best chance of survival. Using closed-corner plastic protectors on flat or almost flat products such as glass, mirrors, desks or worktops can stop damage occurring from being dropped on the fragile corners.

These corner protectors also create space between your products to protect them from becoming damaged by rubbing against each other, or the sides of the packaging in transit. At BPF Online, you can buy 9000 4mm thick corner profile protectors for just £1048 + VAT – that’s just 11p per unit, making corner protectors an affordable addition to your product packaging.

If your products need additional space and protection we also stock shaped corner profile protectors such as our 8mm corner profile protector.

Closed-corner protectors aren’t just suitable for flat or thin items. We also have thicker corner profile protectors for desks and worktops to help protect them in transit.

These are particularly useful as the more vulnerable part of the construction tends to be corners, so giving corners additional protection can reduce waste resulting from damage. These wider corner protectors are also available with additional shaping for more cushioning and greater levels of protection to prevent melamine or wood from chipping, scratching or becoming dented or cracked in transit.

If you ship a wide variety of different-sized products, adding corner protection doesn’t have to mean holding lots of different protector products in stock and formulating a complicated packing process. We offer expanding corner protectors which means you can get all the benefits of buying in bulk and stock just one corner protector for all of your products, making stock holding, reordering and packaging processes simpler.

Don’t overpack your boxes, ensure there’s sufficient space for packaging material to keep your products safe. And, most importantly, if you are using recycled boxes, check there’s no structural damage to the box before you pack it. Once packed, seal your boxes securely to help them retain their integrity.

2. Protect the outer boxes

Once your products have been protected from damage with their shipping carton, you need to consider the best way to protect the carton or box itself. Our pyramid profile corner protectors slot onto the corners of the box, protecting the packaging itself from damage. It’s really important that these stay in place, so if you don’t wrap boxes either individually or to a pallet, it may be worth investing in our pyramid corner protector with a glue spot.

3. Protect the pallet

Choose the pallet you use carefully – while wood pallets are the norm, plastic pallets may be more appropriate for foods and liquids as they are easier to clean in the event of spillage.

Once your product is protected and boxed, and the boxes are protected, it’s time to consider safe palletisation that is durable enough to last the journey. Pallet strapping, while essential to protect products, can cause damage to products and the boxes they are in if not done carefully. By using Strapping Edge Protectors you can prevent the taut strapping from cutting into the packaging and compromising its integrity. BPF Online’s strapping edge protectors have ridges moulded into them to protect the straps from slipping off of the protector or slipping around your products.

If you need longer protection strips for your palletised goods, we have 1.2m pallet extrusion too which can help protect the lengths of your packed pallet with additional structure.

In the unlikely event that you can’t find the plastic strapping protection that you need or, if you have any questions about how we can help you package your products for transit and reduce wastage, contact the BPF customer service team by giving us a call or dropping us a message on our website chat.