Most packaging problems aren't about buying bad products. They're about habits picked up quickly when a business was just getting started, that nobody has ever stopped to question. Some cost money directly, some cost money indirectly through damaged parcels and unhappy customers, and some do both. The good news is that once you know what to look for, they're all straightforward to fix.
Here are the most common packaging mistakes small businesses and online sellers make, and what to do instead.
Buying from the wrong places
Post offices, supermarkets and stationery shops are convenient. They're also consistently among the most expensive places to buy packaging when you look at the cost per bag, per roll or per box. The difference between a mailing bag bought from the Post Office and the same bag bought from a specialist packaging supplier in a pack of 500 can be ten times the price per unit. For a business sending dozens or hundreds of orders a month, buying packaging reactively from whatever's nearby is one of the most expensive habits to break.
The fix is simple enough: order packaging from a dedicated supplier where bulk pricing reflects actual volume, rather than paying a retail convenience premium for the same product. Our mailing bags, grip seal bags and tape are all priced on a sliding scale, so the more you order the lower the unit cost, without needing to commit to quantities that don't make sense for your current volume.
Using the wrong size bag for what you're sending
Too small means a seal that strains to close or splits entirely. Too large means a bag that costs more per unit than necessary, a parcel that looks untidy, and in some cases a postage cost bump because the dimensions push it into a higher bracket. Both directions are a problem, and the fix is the same: measure the item as it would actually be packed, then choose a bag that gives roughly 50mm of margin on each side.
Most sellers who get this wrong do so because they picked a size once that seemed about right and never revisited it. A sizing review across your main product types takes twenty minutes and can cut bag costs meaningfully if you've been defaulting to a size larger than you need. Our mailing bag size guide covers the most common garment types in detail.
Sealing boxes with a single strip of tape down the middle
This is probably the most widespread packing mistake and the one that leads most directly to parcels arriving open or damaged. A single strip along the centre seam of a box flap holds the join closed but leaves both side seams entirely unsealed. Under the weight of the contents, the box can open from the corners, particularly when stacked under other parcels in a van or courier hub.
The H-tape method fixes this completely: one strip along the centre join, one strip down each side seam, with each strip extending onto the box wall rather than just covering the flap surface. This distributes the load across all four seams and takes perhaps five seconds longer than a single central strip, but the difference in how reliably the box stays closed under real transit conditions is significant.
Not checking the seal on mailing bags properly
The self-seal strip on a mailing bag is only effective if it's been pressed down firmly along its entire length, including right into the corners. A seal that's half-closed, particularly at the edges, can work itself open during sorting and transit, which is the most common reason clothing arrives damp or partially exposed despite being sent in a polythene bag. Running your fingers firmly along the full seal after closing it, rather than pressing the middle and assuming the rest has followed, takes two seconds and prevents this almost entirely.
Buying a large bulk order before knowing what you actually need
This one catches new sellers regularly. The unit price at 1,000 bags looks far more attractive than at 100, and it is, but committing to 1,000 of one size before you've sold enough to know what you actually ship most often is how businesses end up with a cupboard full of bags they barely use and a repeated low-quantity purchase of the size they actually needed. The money saved on unit price at the larger quantity doesn't justify it if half the order sits unused for a year.
The better approach is to start with assorted or smaller quantities to establish your real usage patterns, then move to larger orders of the sizes you actually go through quickly. The unit price saving at bulk is real; it's just worth waiting until you have data to back up the quantity decision.
Overpacking items that don't need it
Bubble wrap inside a mailing bag containing a t-shirt. A large box with extensive void fill for an item that would have travelled safely in a snug small box. Excessive tape on a lightweight parcel. These aren't just unnecessary costs, they can also push parcels into a heavier weight bracket with couriers, adding to postage costs on top of the packaging costs themselves.
Protection should match actual risk. Clothing in a correctly sealed mailing bag needs no internal protection. A ceramic item in a cardboard box needs proper cushioning. Applying the same level of protection to everything regardless of fragility wastes material and money on parcels that simply don't need it.
Storing packaging badly
Tape left near a radiator, in a cold garage over winter, or anywhere exposed to direct sunlight will degrade significantly faster than tape stored in a stable indoor environment. Mailing bags stacked under heavy items can have their seals compressed and weakened before they're even used. Grip seal bags stored somewhere dusty may have debris in the seal ridges that prevents a clean close.
None of this is complicated to avoid: store packaging in a normal indoor space, away from heat sources and direct sunlight, and use older stock before newer stock if you're buying in bulk. Our guide to storing packaging tape properly covers the specifics in more detail, and the same principles apply broadly to mailing bags and grip seal bags.
Not reviewing packaging costs as volume grows
A seller dispatching 20 orders a month reasonably grabs packaging wherever is convenient, since the absolute spend is low and the time investment in optimising it isn't worth it. That same seller at 300 orders a month is spending real money on packaging every month, and what made sense at the start is now a meaningful cost to leave unoptimised.
Packaging costs are worth a deliberate review every few months or whenever order volume changes significantly. What quantities you're buying, where you're buying from, whether the sizes you're stocking still match what you actually sell most, and whether any new pricing tiers are available to you at your current volume are all worth checking periodically rather than assuming the original setup is still the best option.
Letting small items arrive loose inside a mailing bag
Dropping a piece of jewellery, a small badge, or a delicate accessory directly into a mailing bag that's considerably larger than the item means the item has the entire interior of the bag to move around in during transit. This is how things arrive scratched, tangled, or in the case of very small items, occasionally lost through a gap in the seal. A small grip seal bag costs a fraction of a penny and keeps the item contained, protected and looking deliberately packaged rather than casually thrown in.
For anyone selling small items alongside larger ones, keeping a basic stock of grip seal bags in one or two small sizes is a low-cost habit that noticeably improves how small item orders arrive. Our guide to using grip seal bags for small item sales covers this in more detail.
Treating packaging as an afterthought
This is the overarching mistake that most of the others stem from. Packaging picked up reactively, without a system or a review process, tends to be more expensive, less appropriate, and less reliable than packaging chosen deliberately. The sellers who get packaging right, and keep costs low without compromising on quality, are generally the ones who spend an hour on it once and then review it periodically, rather than grabbing whatever's available whenever they run out.
If you're not sure where to start, our packaging checklist for online sellers covers the basics in one place. For reducing costs specifically, our guide to reducing packaging costs without cutting corners goes through the main levers in detail.
Leave a comment