Managing parcel size across a catalogue of more than 3000 beauty, personal care and household products requires a packaging system that can flex without becoming unwieldy. Sassy Organics founder Aida Rejzovic tells PKN how the online retailer balances carton choice with product protection.
The difference between shipping a lip balm and a mixed order of fragile glass bottles illustrates a practical challenge for beauty e-commerce businesses. A carton that suits one order may create excess space in another, while a tight fit can leave too little room for protective wrapping.
Melbourne-based online retailer Sassy Organics manages this variation across a catalogue of more than 3000 products spanning the beauty, personal care, wellness, baby and home care categories. Its response is a graduated range of six corrugated carton sizes, combined with separate paper formats for wrapping and void fill.
“Our working definition is simple: use the smallest carton that safely accommodates the products and the protection they require,” Rejzovic says. “Right sizing is not a race to remove every millimetre of space.”
A practical carton range
Limiting an operation to one or two carton formats may simplify purchasing, but can transfer complexity to the packing bench. A compact product placed in a large carton requires more void fill and has more room to move in transit. At the other extreme, several glass bottles forced into a tight carton may sit against its walls or press against one another.
Sassy Organics uses a 174 x 128 x 53 mm mailer for many compact orders, while a 340 x 250 x 180 mm carton accommodates more substantial combinations. Four sizes between those points allow packers to move up gradually instead of placing a small order in the largest available box.
Lipstick, lip gloss, lip balm and mascara can usually be packed in one of the smaller formats. Orders containing several products, bulkier packs or fragile glass move to the next suitable size.
The number of formats must also remain manageable. “Too little choice leads to poor fit, while too much adds stockholding and makes packing decisions unnecessarily complicated,” Rejzovic says. “Six gives us enough flexibility while keeping the system understandable.”
Protection starts with fit
Carton selection is only one part of the packing decision. The carton provides structure, wrapping protects vulnerable products, and void fill stabilises any space that remains. Separating those functions helps prevent extra cushioning being used to compensate for an oversized carton.
The retailer sources its mailing and shipping boxes from PackNBag, and its paper cushioning from Signet. The latter includes Ranpak honeycomb paper for wrapping fragile products and FillPak paper for void fill. The honeycomb structure protects individual glass items before FillPak is added where necessary to restrict movement within the carton.
“Void fill is not a substitute for wrapping a fragile bottle, and protective wrap does not make an oversized carton the right carton,” Rejzovic says. “The sequence is to choose an appropriate box, protect vulnerable items, then address any remaining movement.”
Decisions at the bench
For each order, packers consider product dimensions, item count, fragility and the space that will remain after vulnerable products have been wrapped. Price is not a reliable guide: a premium lipstick may require only a compact parcel, while a lower-priced combination of larger bottles can need more room.
Shape can be equally important. Pumps, caps, boxed skincare products and rounded bottles do not always nest neatly. Fragile products need enough room for wrapping without leaving a large pocket of empty space, and multiple products must be arranged without placing unnecessary pressure on one another.
“This does not need to become a complicated formula,” Rejzovic says. “The carton and protection simply need to be chosen deliberately for the order in front of the packer.”
Building the range around orders
Actual order data provides the starting point for developing a practical range.
“For a retailer developing a right-sized range, I would begin with a representative sample of actual orders,” Rejzovic says. “Look for points where the existing carton is too large, or where the next smaller option leaves too little room for protection.”
Grouping those orders by product footprint, item count and fragility can identify gaps more effectively than selecting sizes from a packaging catalogue in isolation. Any proposed range should be tested against the extremes, from a single compact product to a larger mixed order containing glass, as well as the combinations packed most often.
Dependable access to the selected formats and clear dimensional and material information from suppliers are also important. The range must then be reviewed as the product mix changes, with new categories, larger formats and different product combinations potentially revealing the need for another size.
At Sassy Organics, six carton formats and two paper protection products provide the flexibility to pack a lip balm in a compact parcel while giving a mixed order containing fragile glass the room and protection it requires.
For e-commerce businesses, the broader lesson is that right sizing involves more than reducing carton dimensions. The range must reflect the product mix, allow for appropriate protection and remain simple enough to use consistently at the packing bench.
