How your packing partner meets the requirements of cosmetics fulfilment

Certain sectors have different requirements for storage, packaging, packing, despatch and recall. Let’s look at how the experience and technology of your contract packing partner are brought into play to meet the needs of cosmetics fulfilment.

Pain points – cosmetics retail packaging solutions

Whether your cosmetics are despatched to salons, stores or directly into the hands of customers via e-commerce fulfilment, they have a particular set of requirements due to their shelf life, delicate contents and visibility.

• LOT control for perishable items
• Batch control and product recall
• Packaging aesthetic for display
• Contract packing for transportation
• Environmental sustainability
• Quality control
• Daily and monthly reporting

Let’s – excuse the pun – unpack these factors and requirements and look at the opportunities available through your packing partner to add value to your campaign.

LOT control

Experience and great organisation count for a lot, but powerful technology helps meet the requirements of the LOT Directive.

SCOPe’s warehousing module is a distinct advantage for LOT control. We added LOT control features into our warehousing module in 2020, along with a host of other useful features.

It makes it possible to fully track products in the warehouse and create pick strategies that prioritise batches needing to be despatched first.

Batch control and product recall

Barcodes and labels are printed and added to products to track them from the time they enter our warehouse to their delivery to the salon, store or consumer. As with LOT control, SCOPe automatically manages BBE dates without the need for manual tracking.

If there’s a need to recall a batch for any reason, we know exactly where every item in that batch was despatched and can easily organise recall and replacement.

Packaging aesthetic for display

On the shelf, the product must have shelf appeal and look immaculate. We collate kits (individual products and gift sets) in a clean room with strict adherence to sector guidance on handling, as well as diligence over detailing and a flawless finish.

Granby teams are skilled and completely understand the need for perfection, especially with luxury, fragile and irregular shaped components. There’s nothing they can’t assemble.

Retail packaging solutions for transportation

Lovely packaging designed to have shelf appeal also needs to survive transportation intact. Often, brands will supply the packaging components but our design engineers can also work with brand designers to improve packaging so it continues to look its best.

In addition, we’re conscious of transportation costs. Creative designers aren’t always aware that elaborate packaging intended to catch the eye is guilty of shipping fresh air! Packaging and packing that minimise dead space makes transportation costs more efficient, as we can fit more products on a pallet.

Environmental sustainability

With a rigorous environmental policy and ethos ourselves, we know how important it is for our brand clients to be supported by their partners to achieve good environmental practices in retail packaging.

Our commitments to sustainable business practices include reducing waste and emissions, so we’re always looking for ways we can help brands innovate in this area.

Granby can also advise clients on packaging that is beautiful, practical and in line with their environmental targets.

Quality control

Contract packing must be subject to rigorous quality control, but the quality process itself starts even before this. We don’t use temporary packaging staff from agencies – we employ and train our own people so we can be certain of good outcomes time and time again.

Each product is quality checked then packed with care and attention to detail, guaranteeing the highest standards when they arrive.

Daily and monthly reporting

Powerful fulfilment systems like SCOPe makes reporting fast and easy. Where it’s critical to have visibility on updates, we prepare daily reports as well as month end reports.

However, our clients have full access to real-time data on SCOPe, showing what has been despatched, what’s in stock and so on. Our operations are completely transparent, which is essential when you need to monitor and report back on campaigns yourself.

Clients have a dedicated account manager – while SCOPe automates many processes, having someone on hand to help is a must.

Retail packaging solutions for cosmetics

To summarise, contract packing and fulfilment for cosmetics has particular requirements. A packing partner with experience, technology and infrastructure, cosmetics fulfilment brings more to the table – making fulfilment efficient, cost-effective and adding value wherever they can.

If you’d like to know how an accredited packing partner like Granby would bring added value to cosmetics fulfilment, please get in touch.

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