How To Pack A Pallet

Using a single pallet to ship an item instead of many boxes has many advantages. It saves time and money and lowers the risk of damaged goods and delays. To make sure you receive pallets with no damage every time, here are some tips on how you can pack your pallet correctly.

1. Use the entire space

When packing your pallet, try utilising all the space without having the parcels hang over the edge. Overhanging sides raises the risk of goods being damaged.

Most couriers do not accept pallets that overhang, so when stacking your pallet, try to imagine the sides as the border of a Tetris game. Even though a parcel might fit in better with a bit of overhang, you will have to find a different solution.

2. Keep the surface flat

Having a flat surface doesn’t only help limit sliding boxes on your pallet during transport, it also makes your pallet stackable. If the surface isn’t flat, your pallet is automatically declared as “non-stackable”, which results in further surcharges.

While keeping a surface flat can be challenging when having different-sized boxes, with same-sized boxes, you can easily keep the surface flat by using a bricklayer pattern.

3. Labelling 

When putting a label on your pallet, there are two critical points to consider:

• Put the label on the side of your pallet.

• Make sure to get rid of any old labels that might still stick on the pallet.

Having the label on top, especially on top of stackable pallets, can cause complications in transit. Having to lift other pallets off to be able to scan your pallet costs time and can delay the delivery. The same goes for old labels. 

When old labels are still on the pallet, the risk of scanning the wrong label increases. Reduce errors and transit time by removing the old label and sticking new ones on the side of your pallet.

4. Wrapping 

After you have built your pallet, make sure you use an appropriately strong plastic wrap to keep your pallet together and include the pallet itself when wrapping so that goods cannot move around during transit.

5. Layering same sized boxes

When building your pallet, stability should be the main priority. World Options courier partners TNT or FedEx recommend creating columns. 

While this is the most stable way when you only have a few big boxes, building columns with small parcels isn’t advised. The most stable way to pack a pallet is by making a bricklayer pattern. Then alternate the pattern with every layer. 

Having a box cover the cut between two other boxes in the below layer gives your package maximum stability.  

A stable, square construction in a brick pattern also allows you to further contain the boxes with plastic straps before wrapping them in shrinkwrap. 

7. Layering different sized boxes

The process for different sized boxes is way more complicated. Here you need to make decisions based on every parcel you have.

The first layer of the pallet is the most important. When the boxes are all in the same weight group, having the biggest boxes on the bottom layer provides the greatest amount of stability to the pallet

If you have smaller packets that are heavier than your big boxes, putting them on the lower level reduces the risk of the big box collapsing under the weight of the smaller package.

As long as you have enough boxes that are the same size, build the pallet up layer by layer like you would if your whole pallet had boxes of all the same size. 

Once you get to the point where your parcels are too different to get a flat surface of one layer, start building the rest from the middle out. The heaviest boxes should be in the middle, with the lightest packs on the outside. This raises the stability and lowers the risk of the pallet tipping over to one side. 

Try to keep the shape as consistent as possible. Having a flat surface on the edges of your pallet is more important than having a flat surface on top.

Using tape before shrink wrapping the whole pallet gives extra stability, especially the highest layer, and keeps the boxes on top from slipping about in transit.

Conclusion

Packing a pallet can seem like science at first, but you soon start packing your pallets in record time if you plan correctly. Keep a list of all your standard box sizes and design effective packing templates for all possible stack combinations. 

This ensures that if you work in a company, members of staff can pack a pallet without previous instructions or experience.

When making these templates, some tips to keep in mind are:

• Use the entire pallet without overhanging boxes.

• Keep the surface flat if possible.

• Remove all old labels and put new labels on the side of your pallet.

• Wrap the entire pallet in a strong plastic wrap.