A Major Opportunity to Save:

Design Products and Packaging for Efficient Shipping

One of the easiest ways for a company to save money on their logistics spend is to tackle it as early as possible.


Unfortunately, it’s common to forget about shipping until the product is ready to go out to the final customer or distribution location. Here are two success stories from companies who drastically reduced their freight spend by designing their products and packaging with shipping in mind.

Smaller containers —
smaller costs.

In 2013, Clutch Logistics Global worked with a current customer on a new cell phone charger they were developing in China to sell in the U.S.

By studying their desired supply chain, it became clear that they would need the product to ship via ocean container. Once the product’s prototype was available, we calculated that a 3% total reduction in the product’s packaging would allow for an additional row and column of product to be loaded into the ocean container.

The end result? They increased the usable space in each ocean container, better utilized the supplier’s production capacity, reduced the total number of containers in transit at one time, decreased freight costs, and ultimately allowed them to better fulfill their U.S. customers’ demand.

By engaging us on a consulting basis early in the design process, we were able to save our customer tens of thousands of dollars over the first year of their product’s life cycle. The key was to design the product and packaging with shipping in mind.

By engaging us on a consulting basis early in the design process, we were able to save our customer tens of thousands of dollars over the first year of their product’s life cycle.

This small change ultimately saved our client thousands of dollars on the shipment — and it made our client’s customer happier with the prompter delivery time.

 Size and speed do matter

In 2014, Clutch Global was working with a company producing high-value medical equipment. The client contacted us to advise that the product was crated and ready to ship — but we immediately spotted a cost-saving opportunity.

Because the crated product was one inch too tall to fit on the bottom of a passenger aircraft, it would need to be sent on to the destination aboard the top deck of a freight-only aircraft. Due to availability of such an aircraft to the remote island location, this meant that the estimated transit time would be five days longer.

By engaging our crating partner and working with the company’s engineers, we modified the product slightly and adjusted the crate to be one inch less in height. This small change ultimately saved our client thousands of dollars on the shipment — and it made our client’s customer happier with the prompter delivery time.

Since then, the client has proactively included shipping parameters in product design and packaging. One full year of this new strategy has saved them an estimated $65,000 in freight costs and transit.

Being proactive about shipping standards 
can be one of the most cost-benefiting exercises 
a company can take part in.


Common cost-saving measures you should take into consideration:
Dimension limitations (restricting to the height of an aircraft door, for example)
Unit dimensions relative to container dimensions (to ensure max fill percentage)
Shipment weight relative to standard and overweight allowances

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If you need any assistance designing a supply chain that ensures you’re covered, contact our knowledgeable associates.