Packing Tips

Tips And Tricks for Unpacking after your House Relocation

The process of house relocation, or moving from one home to another, can be quite stressful. It means packing everything up from one home and physically transporting it all to your new one. That’s also on top of wrapping things up at your old home and finding a new one. If you’re selling a previous home and buying the new one, there’s a world of work that goes into all of that as well, and even if you’re just going from one rental to the next, you have to leave your previous rental by the end of the lease and make sure you have a new home lined up in time. It can even get more complicated if you’re leaving a rental for a mortgage and home you bought, or vice-versa.

Once it’s all said and done, you think you’d be quite relieved to be living in your new home, but you have to unpack it all once your house and family are relocated. Fortunately, there are a number of tips and tricks to make this go smoothly.

You may be exhausted by this point and no longer able to really think big. However, you can actually use that to your advantage. Once you’re in your new home, you’re not likely to really be under the gun in terms of deadlines looming over you or hanging over your head. That means you can pace yourself and take things in phases, breaking down the whole process of unpacking into manageable steps.

First of all, if it’s possible, avoid moving into any rooms or portions of the home that you want to do immediate upgrades, improvements, or renovations too. All that work is a lot easier to get done before you unpack.

Secondly, you might want to look into renting a storage unit or even getting a portable storage unit to put in your driveway or yard for a while where you keep as many things as you can for a while. Long-term storage items and things like seasonal decorations or lawn and yard equipment are probably things that can just wait until you need them.

Third, try and set up two rooms in the home for the unpacking process. One will be for storing boxes, and the second will be a staging area for going through things. So that you and your family can start living, try and do this in rooms you might not need immediately, like a guest room, office, or formal dining room. Just get used to eating around the TV for a while and using the laptop from the kitchen table or counter.

Fourth, set up the kitchen first and foremost. Everyone has to eat, and you’ll all need to stay fueled up as you settle in. Eating out, or getting carry out and delivery might work for a while, but this is the one room where you can start your new routine as a family. Bathrooms and bedrooms come next, as everyone can settle into their own spaces and unpack their own things.

Once you get through all this, your unpacking won’t be all done, and you might even have most of it ahead of you still, but you’ll have broken the ice on it enough that there will be momentum and enough breathing room to get the rest done.

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Packing Fragile Items for your House Move

Moving is a huge undertaking and it can be very time-consuming. If you have fragile items that need to be packed these packing tips can help you to get your fragile items safely from your current home to your new home.

Choose Quality Sturdy Boxes

Always start with a good quality sturdy box for your packing needs. A box that is breaking down on the sides and made of thin cardboard isn’t going to offer your fragile goods a sturdy packing container. Thick cardboard boxes are important to the survival of your fragile items. Make sure that the boxes have a sturdy lid to go along with them.

Choose Quality Packaging Supplies

Use a good bubble wrap for your packaging. You can also use plain newsprint (printed newsprint sometimes will transfer the print onto your fragile items) and you can use packing peanuts. Acid-free papers are also good for packing fragile items. You’ll want to have plenty of this on hand so make sure to stock up before you begin packing. You don’t want to have to stop while you’re in the mode to pack and run to the store for more. You may also wish to check with stores that get liquor and see if you can get some of the inserts that the liquor bottle come in (cardboard dividers) or make your own. These are ideal for packing glasses, vases, and taller fragile items.

Choose Dish Boxes For Packing Dishes

Moving companies offer a myriad of different boxes for sale. Choose their specialized boxes for your dishes You can use these for plates and other items. Be sure to wrap plates in bubble wrap and take care to not allow anything to bang together. You may wish to add in some packing peanuts as well to ensure that your plates never have the chance of touching and breaking. You can use your dish linens to add some additional padding in between your dishware. Tuck dishcloths, pot holders, dish towels and tablecloths in between the already padded bubble wrap dishes.

Protect The Stems Of Glassware

Champagne and wine glasses require more padding than you may think. Be sure to wrap some bubble wrap around each stem and finish this by wrapping the entire champagne or wine glass with even more bubble wrap. Secure the bubble wrap with some crumpled paper and you may wish to add some masking tape to that to hold it securely on your stemware. After you’ve wrapped it well, tuck it gently into a divider from a liquor store or some cardboard dividers so that it won’t dislodge or clang together. Add in some packing materials such as packing peanuts or shredded paper to help pad it even more.

Don’t Hesitate To Disassemble

Take the time to remove lampshades and other components. Remove light bulbs as well. Wrap the cords around the lamp overlapping it and then secure the cords to the lamp itself. Follow this up with some packaging paper and finally with some bubble wrap. Make sure that you’re securing every layer separately so that if one layer becomes dislodged you still have the next one protecting your precious fragile items. Pack all of this into a sturdy box and secure the lid well. Be sure to mark the box as fragile.

Pack Fragile Items Early

Pack fragile items early so that you’re not scrambling to pack them at the last minute. This way, you’ll avoid any risk of being in too much of a hurry and damaging anything that is fragile. It’s never too early to begin packing. The sooner you begin, the easier the move is going to be.

Move Carefully

Don’t be in a rush to load items into the moving vehicle. Make sure that lids are secured and those fragile items are placed where they can’t fall over or become banged up. Taking care while loading and unloading will be the final steps to the survival of your fragile items.

Following these tips for packing and moving fragile items will go far in helping you to keep from breaking any of your items while you’re moving. All it takes are a few easy steps and your fragile items will be safe and sound upon their arrival at your new destination.

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Delivery Tracking

Benefits Of Delivery Tracking

By implementing and utilising technology solutions, you will be able to optimise your business in a variety of ways. The use of mapping websites and GPS mobile devices can enhance your delivery tracking and offer you many benefits. Below, we will be going over some of the clear benefits of delivery tracking for your business.

Benefits Of Delivery Tracking:

1. More Efficiency

The main benefit that you are going to be able to enjoy when you invest in delivery tracking for your business is greater efficiency. You will be able to utilise various tools that can help to automatic various aspects of your business which is going to prevent all kinds of issues that you might have without it. Along with this, you are going to be able to streamline everything involving your business systems ranging from purchase order systems to everything else.

2. Spot Potential Issues

Another benefit that you are going to be able to enjoy when you implement this type of tracking into your business would have to be the ability to spot potential issues. Due to the ability to utilise automation and tracking in your business processes, you are going to be able to see where the broken links are in your entire chain of supply and it is going to allow you to effectively spot potential issues that you might be having prior to even having them. This can end up saving you money by allowing you to correct instances where your supply or delivery chain might be broken.

3. Fewer Lost Packages and Wasted Time Responding To Requests

Another big benefit that you are going to be able to get as a business is the ability to have many fewer lost package requests. Because you are going to have tracking, it is going to allow your customers to be able to see packages as they travel and you will be able to identify where they are during their journey. This is going to end up saving you a lot of money and a lot of time.

4. Competition

Another big benefit that you are going to be able to get by investing in your own delivery tracking solutions is the ability to keep up with your competition. By being able to keep pace with your competition, it is going to allow you to maximise your ability to compete in the marketplace. You don’t want your competition having an advantage when it comes to any aspect of your business. Because an increasing number of customers are shopping online, you particularly don’t want them getting an advantage over you when it comes to package tracking.

5. More Effective Troubleshooting

Another benefit that you will be able to get from making this sort of investment is the ability to much more effectively troubleshoot any issues that you have or come across within your organisation. Because you are going to be able to do everything from rerouting deliveries and track various logs, it will enable you to deploy much more effective troubleshooting procedures.

Overall, there are so many different benefits that you will be able to get when you make the investment in delivery tracking. It is going to allow you to sustain pace with your competition as they are likely already investing heavily into it. Along with this, it will allow you to save money by optimising your processes and by being able to better handle all of your delivery questions and requests. By making the investment, you will be able to maximise the benefits that you are able to get from getting complete automation and better end-to-end efficiency throughout your entire organisation.

Overall, there is a lot that you are going to be able to gain when you make the investment in delivery tracking solutions. You will be able to increase the rate at which you are able to track deliveries and the effectiveness at which you are able to do it. You are also going to be able to correct issues that you might be able to spot in your supply chain that can save you a lot of money. Making the investment in delivery tracking is one of the best investments you can make.

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Recycled Packaging

Tips To Make Shipping Parcels Environmentally Friendly

If you’re looking for ways to make your shipping parcels environmentally friendly, you have come to the right place. In this article, we are going to discuss several ways to lessen the environmental impact of shipping packages. There are several advantages of making your shipping parcels more environmentally friendly as it will not only lead to lower costs for your business but you are likely to gain new customers as many consumers these days want to engage with businesses that take an environmentally friendly approach in their business processes. Here is a list of some of the ideas to help you keep the earth green when shipping parcels.

Recycled Products

One of the best ways to make your shipping parcels environmentally friendly is to use recycled content. There are several certification agencies that provide certification for recycled products. You can get more information on these agencies as well as the logos used by them for marking products that have been made using recycled content by searching online on your favourite search engine. It is important to keep in mind that while recycled content is more environmentally friendly, it does come at a higher cost as compared to the regular shipping materials.

Thanks to the increase in awareness about materials that are not environmentally friendly, there are a number of options available in the market to make your shipping parcels better for the environment. One of the most common filling materials used in shipping parcels is Styrofoam. It’s an extremely useful material as it protects the products inside the box against heat, cold, drops as well as bumps but it is not environmentally friendly.

It is a petroleum-based product which means it is non-sustainable and you should also know that the manufacturing process leads to a generation of a lot of waste. Thankfully, there are several other options available today. One of the options include corrugated inserts and there are also some biodegradable materials available in the market at an affordable price.

Volume and Size of Your Packaging

You should also seriously think about reducing the volume and size of your packaging. It has several advantages. One of the biggest advantages is that you will use fewer materials and you will also save some money on shipping costs as it will take up less space on a truck or a plane which will also help in improving your carbon footprint. Needless to say, it will add to the bottom line of your business.

It doesn’t matter what materials you use, there is always going to be somewhat of an environmental footprint of the materials you use for shipping parcels. Thankfully, there are options available today to help you offset the carbon footprint. There are many companies that can help you with that.

When it comes to making your shipping parcels more environmentally friendly, you should also carefully think about the fuel costs of shipping a package from one place to another. Try to make the process as efficient as possible in order to reduce your carbon footprint as much as possible.

These are only some of the ways to help you reduce your carbon footprint when shipping parcels. However, the best way to reduce your carbon footprint and make your overall business environmentally friendly, you need to take a hard look at all the business processes. This will help in identifying processes with scope of improvement to reduce your carbon footprint.

Keep in mind that making your business environmentally friendly will cost you some money initially but you are also likely to gain more new customers if you use this aspect in your marketing. The consumer of today is environmentally conscious and many brands have taken advantage of this by consistently advertising this part to corner a bigger share of the market.

Overall, it can be said that making your overall business environmentally friendly should be seen more of as an investment in your future instead of just looking at it as an additional cost of doing business. While some of these options may seem expensive today but it will reap you rich rewards in the near future. So, do your research and start looking for materials that have lower carbon footprint as compared to the materials you are using currently in order to make your shipping process more environmentally friendly.

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Custom Packaging

Benefits Of Custom Packaging For Your Business Parcels

Product packaging plays an important role in business regardless of its industry or sector, whether it is electronics, furniture, art etc. The ideal packaging is supposed to protect the product during shipping while at the same time creating a memorable experience for the consumer. Businesses have recognised that the way to achieve this is through custom packaging.

A customised item is always better compared to a standard product as it is made to suit particular specifications or needs. Custom packaging means ditching standard packages for your product and creating packaging around a business product from scratch. It entails creating an optimal box size for each product and ensuring that the package is designed to protect the product. Custom packaging, though sometimes seen as an unnecessary cost for businesses is important in creating brand awareness, protecting products and saving costs.

A business that adopts custom packaging benefits in various ways.

1. Creates brand awareness

The packaging of a product is very important in improving the perception of the brand in the eyes of the consumer. Particularly, online consumers who interact with a particular brand only when they receive the package, will base their perception of the brand on that experience. A substandard packaging is likely to make the consumer feel the brand is of lower quality. This is not something any business would like to contend with as it can slowly lead to brand erosion.

Custom packaging can leverage innovation and uniqueness to make a personal connection with the consumer. Character design on brand packaging can lead to consumers developing trust for a particular brand. The packaging colors or theme can help the customers connect with the brand. The emotional connection that a customer has with a brand is very important as this ensures the sustainability of customer loyalty and affinity for the brand. A package with a unique feel or look will increase customer loyalty to the brand.

2. Creates an awesome user experience

Custom packages usually possess the unique characteristics of a particular brand from its logo to its distinguishing features. Packaging forms part of the user experience as it represents the users’ first interaction with a product. Poor packaging will negatively impact user satisfaction and their perception of the brand.

3. Save on packaging and shipping costs

Products come in different sizes and shapes. Furthermore, some products have different accessories that accompany them. Using the same packaging for different products is highly inefficient. With the right package size a business reduces the amount of filler material that is needed. Products are packed properly in manner that minimises the wastage of materials.

A tight fit packaging is also important in the saving costs in shipping especially now that dimensional weight shipping standards have been adopted by the shipping industry. The dimensional weight is calculated as an estimate from the length, width and height of a package. The greater of the actual weight and the dimensional weight is used to calculate the shipping cost. A business that uses custom packaging will use optimal packaging for its products thus saving on parcel shipping costs.

4. Protection of the products

Custom packaging usually contains internal sections and extra padding on the inside to ensure the product is protected. Keeping the product properly protected ensures that the product has a longer shelf life and that it will reach the customer in good condition.

Most of the time, customised packaging helps in ensuring that there is enough protection on the package to guarantee adequate protection for the product. A custom package prevents the product from shifting and consequently breaking during transit. Custom packaging with boxes of the right size, adequate padding material and special corner protection pieces help to ensure that the product reaches the customer in perfect condition.

In conclusion, custom packaging entails much more than boxes with logos. It means having a package that protects the product while being of an optimal size to save on packaging padding and shipping costs. Most importantly, the package has to be put up in a way that it creates a positive experience with the customer. A custom package must stand out in terms of theme, color, size and functionality to provide a positive experience to the customer and to reinforce the brand.

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Our HUGE 2 Part House Moving & Packing Tips Collection [Part 1]

After a little prep work we are finally bringing you what we know you have been waiting for. Our HUGE collection of moving and packing tips. If you are relocating your home or business. Within the same city or town or even across the country then today’s massive guide is going to help you.

Don’t forget to share the love and point those you know are moving soon towards this article. Use the social icons to your left to share! This blog post is for packing. Part two is the moving part of the series.

Moving Is Tedious!

Moving home can be a very tedious task! You don’t have to tell us that! As we know it and you know it after you move for the first time in your life.

Because moving has so many fine details that you need to remember to cross of it’s important to have some kind of packing and moving check list to work from.

Today is the day we turn you boring and tedious packing experience into something that makes sense and is a little fun also.

Our Packing Checklist

Here is our packing checklist. If your stick to this checklist you should have no problems with your move as everything will be covered.

  • Self Pack vs Professional Pack – Pick what you will pack yourself and what you will leave to a professional packing company.
  • Buy Packing Supplies – You can buy moving boxes for the local store if you are on a budget or if you have more cash to splurge your can pick up very high-quality packing boxes from your local removals company.
  • Buy Packing Supply Extras – You need more than boxes. You need bubble wrap, markers, zip-locks bags and heavy duty packing tape just to name a few. Make sure you stock up!Bonus Tip: Buy from a store that is happy to accept returns so you can stock up once and not have to go back to the store several times juggling a budget.
  • Clean Packing – Don’t use old newspaper even if you’re on a budget. Use packing paper. The same paper a butcher uses to wrap meat. Newspaper will stain everything!
  • Strong Boxes – Use strong reinforced boxes. Don’t use cheap boxes. If you think a box is going to be problematic. Then tape down the sides, the top, and the bottom of a box with 5+ layers of tape. If anything, you should do this for every box just in case.
  • Systemise – Come up with a basic system for what you’ve packed. Maybe write what is in each box (eg. Clothes) and then also write where the box needs to go in your new place. That way it’s easy to manage when you move into your new place.
  • Make Lists – Number all your boxes and make short lists of what is in each box. This way when you just move into your new home and are unpacking for the first week or so you will know where everything is if you need something “in the moment”.
  • Pack Small First – Start by packing all the small things that are not used too often. For example everything in your garage, books, old DVDs, paperwork and so on. This way you get all the little and annoying things out of the way and you’re not trying to cram them into random boxes at the end.
  • Pack By Room – Pack each room separately and don’t start packing a new room until you are done packing the previous room. Also, leave the boxes in the middle of the room as you fill them, tape them up and label them. This way nothing will go missing and you will know where everything is.
  • Spread Weight Around – Don’t cram all the heavy things into one corner of a box. Spread the weight around the box as you pack.
  • Don’t Over-pack – Boxes can only take so much. If you over pack you might end up carrying a box and everything will fall out of the bottom and potentially break. Most boxes are rated to 20kg so keep that in mind.
  • Fill the Void – Don’t leave empty spaces in boxes. Pack in spare towels, clothes or even packing paper. If you have empty spaces in boxes things might move around and break during transport.
  • Don’t Force Boxes – If a box needs to be really forced to stay closed and taped down then remove some items so the box closes easily. And put the rest in a new box.
  • Use the Right Box Size – Use big boxes for light weight items and smaller boxes for heavier items. If you use big boxes for heavy items there is a good chance that the boxes will break when you carry them.
  • Empty Everything – Don’t transport draws, cupboards or anything else in a lazy fashion. Empty everything out. Not only is transporting furniture with things inside dangerous but if you do this you risk damaging everything that’s inside.
  • Your First Night – Have a think about your first night in your new home. What will you need? Make sure it’s easy to access. Maybe even label one box ‘First Night’ and put all the essential in there like toiletries, some clothes. And so on. And of course since it’s 2018 you phone chairing cable!
  • Furniture First – The first thing you need to do after you finish packing is to dismantle your furniture. Take apart everything that is easily dealt with. Make sure you don’t do something that can injury you. It’s best to have someone help your with bigger furniture like a friend or even hire a professional moving company to do the work.
  • Box all the Screws – All the screws that you end up with should be sorted. Use several zip lock bags and write what furniture item the screws were from on the front of the bag. Then keep all the zip lock bags in one box so you know where they all are.
  • Flat Pack – Everything that can be flat packed should be flat packed. It’s much easier to flat pack than it is to transport fully build tables and desks around town for example.
  • Re-use What You Have – Not everything needs to be packed in packing boxes. If you have suitcases in the house for your holidays then use them to transport your clothes during your move.
  • Stack Plates  Sideways – When packing plates don’t stack them on top of each other. Stack them sideways and wrap each one with bubble wrap. This is the safest way to transport them without any breakage.
  • Take Pictures – Unless you have a photographic memory it’s best to take pictures of all your electronics. With 20+ cables going in every direction for a home cinema setup it could take hours to reconnect. Or it could take 5 minutes if you know exactly how to reconnect everything from a photo.
  • Spill Proof – Make sure everything is spill proof before packing. Tear off a piece of plastic bag and open a container and then screw the lid back on with the plastic inside.
  • Cut Proof – Make sure anything sharp is adequately packed with extra material so no-one gets hurt.

As a bonus you can watch this video also for 30 more packing tips:

That is it for the packing tips. Hopefully these tips were helpful and make your move easier. Next up are moving tips in part two.

You can read part two here.

Our HUGE 2 Part House Moving & Packing Tips Collection [Part 1] Read More »

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