Packaging Volume is More Than Just Total Number of Units
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Sara Greasley

Sara has been in the packaging industry for over 15 years, not only on the design and manufacturing side, but also as a packaging buyer. She has intimate knowledge of all facets and perspectives of the custom packaging industry.

There’s More To Packaging Volume Than Just Total Number Of Units

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When shopping for custom packaging you will, at some point, be acquiring price quotes from various vendors. These packaging supply companies will be wanting to know your volume before they can give you a price quote. What should you say? If your total packaging volume is 20,000 units, should you simply say, “20,000 units”?

That depends…

If you have 10 SKUs at 2,000 units per SKU, then simply saying your volume is 20,000 units may be the truth, but it is inadvertently misleading and will most likely render your price quote invalid and useless.
The reason for that is because in custom packaging manufacturing, the manufacturer will try to get all your product versions (SKUs) into one “set-up” on his machinery. This means that if he can’t do this, then he has to create another “set-up” to finish the remaining SKUs. This costs time and money for the manufacturer.
If you have a high enough volume then these set-up costs are going to be negligible. But if your volume is low, these costs can definitely affect your bottom line.

A lot of packaging companies or packaging brokers will know to ask you how many SKUs you have, but in case they don’t, please volunteer the information because, after all, you want an accurate price quote and your time is just as valuable as theirs.

This has been a part of my tutorial series called How to Buy Packaging 101. So click the link below to head back if you haven’t finished reading it yet. 🙂

How to Buy Packaging 101 Part 2 – Determining Your Packaging Needs

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