It is always disturbing when a customer gets a product they have been waiting for only to find it broken in shipping. It means contacting the supplier and asking for a refund or replacement and all the red tape that involves. The supplier is never happy to learn their product did not make it through the shipping process intact. It means a loss for them and an unhappy customer. Better packaging is the answer.

Why are Pharmacies Looking for Better Packaging?

With the pandemic and other issues causing more people to stay home and order their medications delivered or shipped to their homes, the packaging is important. A broken container makes the medication unusable and unsafe. The patient may be out of the old medication and not do well with a gap in supply. It is important for all medications and pharmacy products to get to customers intact.

The other problem is pharmacies receiving products from pharmaceutical manufacturers and being able to properly dispense the medication to customers. Pharmacies get their medications in bulk containers and then use them to fill patient prescriptions from doctors. FastPak pharmacy packaging is one solution that can work very well for pharmacies and for medication shippers. This oral medicine distributing and packaging equipment can be used in stand-alone pharmacies, retail level, long-term patient care facilities, and hospital pharmacies.

This system is great for versatility and modular configuration. It supplies as many smart canisters as the dispensing location requires. It allows pharmacy operators to automate the distribution of solid oral-type medications and cut down on mistakes and time loss.

What Types of Packaging are Available?

Choosing the right package for any product can attract customers, keep the product safe, and keep the product fresh, avoiding spoilage. The wrong packaging can be a disaster with a spoiled product, breakage, unhappy retailers, and unhappy customers. The wrong packaging can sink a new product. Considerations for packaging choices might include the following.

• The product packaging budget
• Which type of transportation will be used for shipping
• Materials choice and their sustainability and impact on the environment
• The product size
• The design and the branding the manufacturer has in mind

There are a number of packaging choices, including shrink films, flexible films, carded packaging, blister packs, clamshells, skin packs, corrugated boxes, padded mailers, bags and envelopes, and custom product packaging. 

Packaging Needs

There may be multiple packaging needs to be fulfilled in shipping. The bulk product being shipped will need protective packaging in the form of boxes of some sort. The individual products will need packaging to keep them safe and clean. Then, the individual item to sell will need attractive packaging for the customer to see and react to.

Simply speaking, the customer bulk order from a supplier will need to be gathered in a warehouse and packaged as one large unit to be shipped to the customer. Once the bulk package is received by the pharmacy or other retailer, it must be opened, inspected, checked for completeness of order and damage, and then separated into individual products to store and sell.

A pharmacy might get both bulk drugs to store safely and use to fill patient prescriptions as well as individually packaged products for their retail shelves such as food supplements, cold medications, skin care products, and so on. All types of products must look attractive to customers or be safe for storage until use. The bulk medications must be easy to draw from to fill prescriptions yet kept safe and fresh.