Help, Glass items via courier!

[Claire H]

Hi,

I run an online business selling homeware and gifts. I have never received a customer complaint until I started shipping mirrors to customers. I always ensure that my items are always well packed but I just can't seem to get this right with mirrors for some reason. I pack in plenty of bubble wrap, polystyrene on both sides of the mirror and in a box (with fragile tape) and they are still arriving smashed.

I wondered if anyone else had experienced similar problems. I would also be keen to hear from anyone who could give me packaging advice as I'm unsure what to try next other than not offering mirrors on my site. I use Myhermes - I have never experienced any problems with them in the past apart from recently with mirrors. Unfortunately they won't cover me for glass items so I'm left out of pocket.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 226268]

.
Unfortunately mirrors, and sheets of glass are not shock tolerant,

ie. THROWN off the back of the delivery truck onto the concrete floor at the distribution depot,
however well you have packed them, in bubble-wrap, cardboard, etc.

Items like Vases and glass bowls have at least some internal structure which helps
to keep them in one piece.

It has been my own bitter experience in the recent past that leads me to conclude
that My Hermes and Yodel seem to employ whoever they can find,
including Neanderthal knuckle-draggers recruited directly from the nearest Zoo.

Because of the fragile nature of the mirrors, I would think that even
Royal Mail delivery would break them too.

I think that you would be better off offering collection only, delivering them yourself,
or giving up with selling mirrors !

.

 

[Krprop]

Hello,

There is a company called fragilistics. co .uk that specialise in national mirror delivery. They might be more expensive that myhermes, but its cheaper that refunding customers and re-seinding items.

Its worth giving them a call.

 

[SamStones]

What size are the mirrors you're sending? Unless they're extremely small ie a3 size or less and you can really pack them out with voidfill and in a cardboard box I wouldn't chance sending them with any courier.

That said , try and avoid couriers with the automated conveyor belt systems if possible. They won't do your packages any favors.

 

[Mail Workshop]

We wrote a recent post on shipping fragile items; most points made are pretty obvious (aimed at startups) but worth my two cents I hope: http://www.parcelhub.co.uk/10-tips-shipping-fragile-items/

 

[ecoleman]

Just don't use UK Mail, whatever you do.

 

[brc]

Not sure how expensive these items are or if you are able to pass on the costs but we used to ship in mirrors for a uk wholesaler from china some years ago and they used to insist we had each mirror applied with shock proof plastic film, the kind that is not being offered for mobile phone screen protectors to protect from drops etc, this film was applied directly to the mirror at the factory stage and used to cost a small fortune back then as the material was imported from South Korea and as the mirrors where quite large in some cases it really was expensive, this was part of the packaging the rest was polystyrene, void fill, and corner cushions, we used to think it was a bit excessive as export packaging is normally sufficient and since the goods where being shipped in containers and crated/boxed in there was a very small chance that they would get broken but since the customer requested this film we obliged, it was only later we learnt they where selling online and this film was used so that the item did not break in transit.

It may be an option for you to look at, I would also look at doing drop tests to see how your packaging stands up to the handling it will go thru and where possible avoid fragile tape and marks all together, it just becomes a target for the yobs at the depots like the video above shows.