Returnable packaging reduces waste and minimises the risk of costly DOAs, whilst ensuring more efficient logistics and higher customer satisfaction. By opting for reusable solutions that include cleaning and repair, you extend the product’s lifespan and achieve long-term cost savings.
Summary of this article
Sustainable packaging is the trend. The quality requirements are getting stricter and the call for a lower CO2 footprint is getting louder. What strikes me is that the focus is mainly on saving packaging materials. While there is even more to gain by choosing returnable packaging. In this blog I explain how I see that.
With sustainability, people in logistics often think about savings in the amount of packaging material, focusing mainly on the material, weight and size of the packaging. I always challenge my clients to look a little further and think about reusing the packaging. In my experience, returnable packaging can be profitable on several fronts. Consider the environment, delivery performance, product lifecycle and customer relations.
Customers are placing increasingly stringent demands on the quality of the products they order. One of the prerequisites is that your product arrives at its destination in one piece and on time. Clean, without scratches, working properly. Rejection or DOA (Defect on Arrival) is unacceptable. It causes delays for your customer, who (rightly!) does not want them. With returnable packaging you reduce this risk and you can improve your performance. For example, a flight case is much sturdier and better constructed than one-way packaging. After all, it is made to be shipped multiple times and can handle a blow or impact considerably better.
Especially if you regularly ship products to your customers, returnable packaging can significantly reduce your carbon footprint. Repeatedly purchasing cardboard boxes or wooden crates is less sustainable than using returnable packaging. The waste generated and the production costs of single-use packaging have a considerable impact on your carbon footprint. In addition, durable returnable packaging helps reduce the risk of DOA. This prevents unnecessary transport movements to replace a damaged product.
Rejected products or DOA can be extremely costly. It causes frustration and inconvenience for the customer, but also for you. If you ship 10 products and one arrives damaged, an entire process has to be set in motion to resolve the issue. The customer must return the product and wait for a replacement, while you need to repair it or take it out of circulation and send a new product to the customer. Internal sales, operations, production, logistics and planning all have to get involved. How efficient is that? With solid returnable packaging, you reduce the risk of DOA and the associated costs. This can save you a great deal of money and hassle.
With the right packaging, you also invest in customer satisfaction. A mishap along the way can always happen, but after a few misses, you already have to fight hard to restore trust and maintain cooperation. Don’t forget that DOA is customer annoyance number one. If the delivery performance is terrible, you can forget about new orders. With the right packaging, however, you can make a good impression on your customer. And I am convinced that this can only benefit your sales.
In practice, we see more and more buyers looking for sustainable packaging solutions. However, they do not immediately think of returnable packaging. They are often surprised when we provide insight into what is possible and what long-term savings they can achieve with it. For one of our customers, for example, we have set up a global pool for flight cases. We keep the flightcases in stock here and deliver them exactly on time, worldwide. The flightcases then come back to us, we clean them and make repairs where necessary to recondition them. In this way, we ensure an optimal lifespan for the return packaging and completely relieve our customer. This customer’s delivery performance has never been higher!
Reusable packaging is only truly sustainable if it remains reliable throughout its entire service life. That is why our work at Faes does not stop once the packaging is put into use. We inspect, maintain and repair packaging so that damage is addressed in time and the entire packaging solution does not have to be replaced unnecessarily. For our customers, this means less downtime, lower replacement costs and a longer technical and economic lifespan for their packaging.
Within our own organisation, we also work systematically to reduce our environmental impact. Faes’ environmental management system is ISO 14001 certified. This ensures that we manage, evaluate and continuously improve our environmental performance.
Of course, I would not argue that returnable packaging is necessarily the most sustainable packaging solution. Choosing the right packaging is more complex than that. In this white paper, you’ll read how to choose the best packaging for your product. But I do advocate looking not only at the purchase price of packaging, but also at the long-term costs and returns. Ultimately, your company will be judged on delivery performance. Therefore, consider reusable packaging.
Then let’s have a conversation together. We bet we’ll soon arrive at concrete actions that will not only reduce your impact on the environment, but also lower your costs and risks. Leave your question in the contact form below or call or email us directly.
Thijs Canjels is Business Innovation Manager at Faes and specializes in packaging management and supply chain optimization. In his blogs, he shares insights on efficiency improvements, cost savings and the strategic role of packaging in modern supply chains.
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