Pallet Shipping 101: How to Prepare Freight for Shipping

Learn How to Prepare Your Freight for Shipping in these Simple Steps (Infographic)

[Updated June 2023]

Preparing your freight for shipping is very important to avoid any surprises upon arrival. Let’s review how to ready a pallet and package your freight.

We can never say it enough:

• Carriers’ job is to move your freight from A to B, not to prepare it for shipping. So package your shipment as well as possible.
• Package your products and pallet for strength: your products can be damaged on the inside of each box, on the pallet, and by other pallets. So protect it from the inside out.
• Use quality packaging materials. This is very important, especially if you’re a new shipper. It’s worth the extra time, work, and cost.
  • Quality boxes, quality pallets, quality shrink wrap, quality tape…

7 Best practices to prepare your freight for transport – in boxes

1. Your products need to be properly packed in each individual box

• Make sure the boxes are full, with no air in them. With air, your products can get crushed and damaged on the inside during shipping. You can cut the box and adjust the size, use packing materials like packing peanuts, bubble wrap, etc. Just make sure that your box is structurally sound when you’re done.
  
• Use enough tape otherwise it could open in the middle or tear off on the edges.

2. Stack boxes together, carefully, evenly

• Stacked or aligned boxes are preferred,
• Heavier boxes at the bottom, lighter boxes at the top,
• Make sure boxes don’t overhang or aren’t misaligned on the pallet, otherwise, the pallet can act as a bumper, or boxes will move and be damaged.

3. Distribute weight evenly: inside each box and each box on the pallet

4. Use flat empty cardboard every couple of rows to solidify all loose boxes

5. Use cardboard corner beads around the pallet to strengthen the whole pallet

6. Shrinkwrap it properly so it’s tight together

• Don’t be shy on the shrink wrap: wrap 3 to 5 times around the pallet (1 or 2 times isn’t enough);
• Make sure shrink wrap adheres to the product;
• Use quality shrink wrap;
• Wrap the top part of the pallet as well but not entirely so the pallet is accessible to the forklift, so the pallet doesn’t separate from the boxes when the forklift tilt to transport;
• As you wrap your boxes, twist the wrap for more strength.

7. Option to strap it to the pallet with a nylon strap to help even more

Please share this infographic on your site by copying and pasting the code below:
<a href=”https://www.freightera.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/pack-palletize-shrink-wrap-freight-lg.png”><img src=”https://www.freightera.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/pack-palletize-shrink-wrap-freight.png” alt=”How To Pack, Palletize, Shrink Wrap Your Freight” width=”620″ border=”0″ /></a><br />Source: How To Pack, Palletize, Shrink Wrap Your Freight – An infographic by the team at <a href=”https://www.freightera.com”>Freightera</a>

Thinking about shipping? Read more about what we can do for you with our pallet shipping services.