Many people think that if a package is damaged, it’s simply been handled roughly. And, on occasion, that’s true. But more often than not, the culprits are vibration, compression, and internal movement, and they exert their damaging effects on your shipment as it’s processed by conveyor belts and sorting equipment and loaded in and out of vehicles. When you realize what your package really goes through, you’ll look at packaging it differently.
An ISTA test environment will subject a package within a standard ground parcel delivery network to as many as 17 impacts of more than 3.5 feet or to being dropped or tipped five times. The package must also be able to withstand the weight of four to five other packages for up to two minutes, but that’s not overly aggressive, that’s Thursday if you’re shipping barcoded ground with a common carrier.
