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When a small business sells perishable products online, it must use the best practices when shipping these items. Unlike clothes or accessories traveling in the mail, food that can spoil needs other considerations to ensure it arrives to the customer in perfect condition. Boost customer satisfaction and enhance your shipping practices with the steps in this article.
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Schedule the Delivery in a Timely Manner
Time is of the essence when sending perishable food through the mail because you never want it to spoil before reaching the customer. Due to this, finding a post office and scheduling the delivery is of the utmost importance. Visit this website to know more. You need to factor in the climate to which you’re delivering the package and how many days it will take to get there.
Pro-Tip: Don’t send perishable packages in the mail over the weekend unless the customer has paid for overnight shipping. This is because the box will likely sit at a carrier or post office until the work week starts, which gives the food enough time to go bad.
Choose Your Packaging Type Carefully
You can’t package perishable food items in any packaging material you like. The best type of packaging for perishables should have insulation and secure protection to keep any outside elements, such as moisture or pests, from contaminating the food inside. In the next step, we discuss adding ice packs because you must also accommodate this weight in your packaging.
Consider Packing Ice Packs
No matter what type of perishable product you’re packing for shipping, it must remain cold or partially frozen at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Small businesses shipping perishable products must ensure the food arrives to customers as intended. Plus, the package cannot regulate its temperature and could spend time in hot delivery trucks with no air conditioning. Using frozen gel packs or dry ice is your best solution, but package them safely so that they don’t burst or contaminate your perishables.
Label Packages Appropriately
How can a customer or a shipping handler know that a package has temperature regulation with perishables inside? They can’t unless you clearly label your packages. We advise you to write “Keep Refrigerated” somewhere on the package where it’s easy to read to help prevent someone from mishandling it.
Maintain Communication With the Customer
Remember when we said time is of the essence? Don’t forget this because you should maintain communication with the customer so that they can retrieve their package in a timely manner. Notify the customer when you’re sending the box in the mail and when it arrives. This allows them to be home when the package comes or to make arrangements so that someone can ensure the items aren’t spoiling.
How you ship and package perishable products can be the difference between a package arriving at a customer’s front door in perfect condition or getting ruined because of poor shipping practices. Consider carefully how your small business handles these situations by following the steps above. Does your business use the best practices for shipping perishable foods?
