Incorporating a Packing Slip in Your Shipments

Incorporating a packing slip into your product boxes or pallets offers a wide range of benefits to everyone involved in the shipping process. Why should you do it? There are many excellent reasons to include a packing slip, which is also commonly referred to as an order slip, shipping slip, or packaging list, and a few reasons to consider skipping it. Let’s take a look at some of the upsides and downsides. What is a Packing Slip? Simply put, a packing slip is a written list of the items inside a package or on a pallet. It generally includes other meaningful information regarding the order, like the customer’s name and address, the cost of each item, the order number, and your company’s name and contact info. It’s important to note that the order slip is not an invoice, a bill of lading, or a picking slip, though the information on it can occasionally overlap with these documents. Why Should You Include a Shipping Slip? Incorporating a packing slip is a great way to communicate with everyone who comes in contact with your products. Once a shipment leaves your warehouse, it will interact with various parties as it travels to its destination. The packaging list helps keep all those different parties on the same page when it comes to handling your products. Pack Slips in the Warehouse Not only does it help the end user, but packing lists also offer many convenient benefits to your own employees. A pack slip can greatly improve your warehouse efficiency by clearly stating what’s in the box or on the pallet. With boxes, you can account for every single item that should be placed inside. For pallets, you can list the exact number of boxes or products unitized together to avoid confusion. You can also describe which parts relate to other ones included in the load, so there’s absolutely no confusion when it comes to unloading and sorting. Order Lists in Transit We all know that the average shipping process can go awry very quickly. Especially when no direction is given, it’s more than possible for items to go missing or get mishandled as they make their way to a customer or retailer. With a pack list in place, shipping disasters are easier to deal with. If you find pallets unbound or boxes wide open, the packing slip functions as a quick guide to help you piece everything back together. Without that shipping slip, someone will have to blindly put things back in order or the end user will need to contact you to get the necessary information. Packing Slips and Your Customer Whether you ship out just a few boxes each week or send out ten pallets full of goods every day, someone will eventually receive your shipment. That consumer will benefit immensely from having a packaging list included with their items, as it tells them what to expect inside each box and on each pallet. Once the product arrives, the customer can use the packing slip to quickly account for all the pieces. This allows consumers to notify you about any missing parts before they attempt to use the product without all the proper tools or components. Other Advantages to Consider Beyond these advantages, there are several other reasons to include a packing slip with your shipments. Should something go disastrously wrong during transit, a packing list can support an insurance claim by showing the value of your goods and how many items were included before they were damaged or destroyed. Packaging slips are also essential for international shipments. They list vital details about the kinds of materials moving overseas, dimensions and weights of the products, and much more. This can speed up the customs process when your goods arrive at a border, lowering the chance of the shipment being stopped for extra inspections and allowing your items to arrive at their destination faster. Another practical benefit of a pack slip is that it provides an additional opportunity to market to your customer. Use the order slip to include valuable extras, like a discount code or personalized thank you note. Your clients will see this as professional and helpful, making them more likely to give you repeat business in the future. When Should You Skip the Packing Slip? While a shipping slip is a convenient and practical organizational tool, there are a few situations where you may want to leave it out. Many manufacturers will blind ship, or send goods without including their own information, to a client for a distributor. In this circumstance, you’d likely want to leave out a pack slip that features your logo, company name, or contact information. Another reason you may want to skip the shipping slip is if you generally only send one item at a time directly to the customer. Many buyers see extra paper as unnecessary and consider it wasteful or bad for the environment. These consumers probably don’t need a list to help organize their one-item purchase, so you may want to consider either forgoing the packing slip altogether or giving your customers the choice to opt out during the checkout process.