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Inspect Your Shipments Before Signing
September 7, 2007

I have some manufacturers who actually expect us to open every carton and throughly inspect each item upon arrival for potential damage.  These are usually companies with whom we've had a recurrence of issues, most of which are linked to freight damage.  What happens, though, when, for whatever reason, the shipment is signed for "un-inspected"?  It is rare, but I happen to have one such shipment that has just been added to my stock.  I dread the repercussions of this minute oversight.  My warehouse personnel did not realize that the pieces needed to be unboxed and inspected while the driver was present.

Why would we carry a brand with which we've had so many problems?  At what point is enough actually enough?  Well, in this case, we had to have certain things and with minimum orders and such high freight, we had no choice.  Sometimes, though, we continue with a brand in good faith that things will improve.  Often times an increase in packing material is all that is required to reduce the issues.

Manufacturers (of furniture in particular), do you find that you have a significant number of freight damages that may warrant an increase in packing material?  Would the cost of the packing material outweigh the losses in damages?  Are you finding problems like loose hinges, separated molding, damaged drawers or other issues that can occur due to shifting in shipping?  What can you do to prevent forest fires... I mean freight damage!?!

It would make my life and the lives of other customer service representatives (for retail stores and manufacturers) much more enjoyable if we had less damage... for that matter, it would make everyone's lives more enjoyable if we had less damage!

Posted by Kelly Nelson on September 7, 2007 | Comments (0)