Superpharmacy reduces transit damages by 45% with Geami

Superpharmacy is a leading online pharmacy with over 1,000,000 customers nationwide. The business works hard to ensure that every step of its online retailing process adds value to its customers, from quality products to a seamless delivery experience.

With that guiding principle, Superpharmacy partnered with Signet to utilise the range of protective packaging options in order to securely send 150,000 orders annually from its fulfilment centres around Australia.

From glass vitamin jars to perishable health foods, a large portion of Superpharmacy’s product range is considered fragile, increasing the importance of ensuring quality protective packaging is used as products journey through the supply chain.

In 2017, Superpharmacy was experiencing a spike in damaged eCommerce orders delivered to customers when bubble wrap was used as a protective wrapping method. This resulted in a high cost of product replacements, packaging waste, and had the potential to hinder Superpharmacy’s reputation.  

“We would receive customer complaints that glass shards would fall out when unwrapping glass items. The product damage was especially noticed when we would send small fragile items in satchels, as the volume of bubble wrap used was never enough to fill the excess space in the satchel.” —Lachlan Fraser-Bell, Superpharmacy Head of Product Design.   

The business wanted to mitigate this problem while simultaneously removing any unnecessary plastic used in their eCommerce shipping division, which aligned with the company's mission to reduce plastic use in their operations.

“We took a strong look into packaging options and realised we had an important role in not only ensuring our products were delivered safely but that our choices and considerations had to extend into our overall environmental footprint and customer experience. There needed to be an option that was both environmentally responsible and systematically more effective.”

Signet introduced Superpharmacy to an eco-friendly alternative to bubble wrap called Geami, which is now used across all their sites. The Geami expands die-cut paper to a 3D honeycomb structure that securely protects their products without the need for tape.

Since implementing Geami and overhauling the companies packaging procedures, Superpharmacy has seen a near 45% national decrease in damaged items due to the highly protective and rigid nature of the wrap.  

“This new solution not only gives us greater reassurance that the items will arrive undamaged, but it is also more cost-effective whilst providing our customers with environmentally conscious packaging that they can feel good about receiving. We feel there is no better option for our packaging process.”

Superpharmacy gradually phased out the bubble wrap they had stocked up on whilst they had the Geami in place, which was fully phased out in 2019. Superpharmacy is now using only fully recyclable and/or compostable materials in their fulfilment process, adding no unnecessary plastic.

Where Geami is in use, the small machine footprint and ease of use have contributed to time efficiency gains.  

“We had no way to seamlessly integrate the bulky spool of bubble wrap into the packing stations, so our staff had to step away from the bench to get sheets. Now our packing stations are centred around the Geami dispensers, making packing faster with minimal time in motion.”

Superpharmacy has also recorded an increase in customer satisfaction regarding their environmentally friendly internal packaging.

“Of 10,000 post-delivery polling responses, 12% specifically highlight our sustainable packaging choices as the thing they loved most. We’ve also seen it become a major pillar of our social media channels, with customers sharing their thoughts and experiences once opening their parcel. Prior to our commitment to phase out plastic, we never received compliments surrounding our packaging.” 

Signet’s environmentally friendly packaging has helped Superpharmacy progress in the companies sustainability commitments, whilst simultaneously greatly increasing customer satisfaction and reducing the risk of damaged items.

If you’d like to make your eCommerce packaging more sustainable like Superpharmacy has, call us on 13 7446, email sales@signet.net.au, or Live Chat with us by visiting www.signet.net.au. 

Signet is proud to support Superpharmacy and over 60,000 other Aussie ventures.