Case packing and shipping

Soap is one of the heaviest things per dollar in this estate, which makes shipping a structural cost rather than a detail.

A dense product

A 120 gram bar is small and heavy for its size, so a box of them hits weight limits long before volume ones.

Which reverses the usual packing intuition: the right box for soap is smaller than it looks like it should be, and a large box packed full is frequently over a carrier's practical threshold.

Work the weight first and size the box to it.

Case count

Pick a case count and hold it: it drives wholesale pricing, the reorder unit, the shelf tray and the inventory count.

Twelve and twenty-four are the conventional counts and they divide well for a retail shelf.

Match the case to the loaf where you can, so a case is a whole number of loaves and the batch record maps onto the stock record without arithmetic.

What breaks in transit

Bars do not break often. Corners chip, bands scuff, and boxes crush.

So the packing job is immobilization rather than cushioning: bars that cannot slide do not scuff.

Dividers or a snug fit, and enough fill that nothing moves when the case is shaken.

And keep fragrances apart in a mixed case if the scents are strong, because soap transmits scent to soap through a paper band.

Shipping cured and uncured

Never ship a bar that has not finished curing. It is soft, it distorts under the weight of the bars above it, it sweats in a warm truck, and it arrives wrong.

And heat is the specific transit risk: a parcel in a hot vehicle softens, and a stack of soft bars fuses at the contact faces.

Which is the argument for shipping fully cured, packed tight, in a small box.

References