WSUK is a logistics operator that supplies packaging, so the specification for businesses at Relay Park is written by people who pack and despatch goods every working day. Materials are specified to the product, supplied into B77-B79, and held on call-off where run quantities justify it.
What gets packed at Relay Park
The mix also means both parcel and pallet traffic leave from the same few streets, and a pack specified for one of those routes is usually wrong for the other.
What the businesses here share is not what they make but how they buy. Packaging arrives from whoever answered last time, in sizes chosen for a product that has since changed, and nobody holds the whole picture because it comes from several places.
A few things decide what a unit actually needs.
- One account across outers, protection, print and consumables.
- A short carton range fitted to what actually leaves, rather than the accumulated list.
- Trade quantities without a minimum on standard lines.
- Protective materials chosen against the failure mode rather than by adding more of whatever is to hand.
- Postal and parcel formats for the units despatching to consumers.
| Business | Despatch pattern | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment hire or repair | Out and back | Reusable cases with fitted inserts |
| Manufacturer | Pallet and parcel both | Carton ladder plus protective range |
| Importer | Bulk in, broken cases out | Heavy outers plus a part-case pack |
| Distributor | Pallets to a schedule | Pallet consumables and outers |
| Online retailer | Parcels daily | Postal boxes, mailers, void fill, printed tape |
| Trade supplier | Collected and delivered | Heavy duty cases, strapping, film |
The businesses in a mixed commercial area and what each tends to order.
Relay Park and the wider Tamworth area
Tamworth supports a business base of National distribution, logistics and manufacturing, and Relay Park is one of the addresses where that is despatched from. The packaging question here is less about what to buy than about how much of what is currently bought is doing useful work.
Tamworth's road links run to M42 (J10), A5, A38 and M6 Toll (T3). That makes Relay Park straightforward to deliver into, and it means goods leaving are on a national route quickly enough that the pack specification should assume a long journey rather than a short one.
The practical constraint at Relay Park is usually floor space rather than budget. The quantity that prices well is larger than the quantity a unit can store, and that gap is what holds most businesses on a worse price than they need to be on.
Everything here is supplied through packaging services in Tamworth, and the service pages behind it set out each material range in detail.
The ranges a unit at Relay Park orders
One account, one invoice, one delivery into B77-B79 - across all of this.
- Postal and ecommerce formats - mailers, letterbox packs, book wraps and padded envelopes. See postal and parcel packaging.
- Stockholding and call-off - run quantities produced once, held centrally and released as you consume them. See packaging stockholding.
- Films and stretch wrap - stretch film, shrink film and barrier film, specified by gauge and containment force rather than by roll.
- Sustainable options - recyclable corrugated, paper tape and fill, moulded pulp and plastic-free mailers. See sustainable packaging.
- Retail and shelf ready - retail outers, trays and shelf ready cases where product goes on through a retailer. See retail packaging.
- Strapping and load protection - polypropylene, PET and steel strapping, corner boards and edge protection. See industrial packaging.
- Printed and bespoke - printed cartons, tape and inner wrap, and made-to-size cartons where a standard line costs more than it saves. See bespoke carton manufacture.
Stock, delivery and call-off
Printed and bespoke work is where the arrangement earns its place. The run is produced once at the quantity that prices properly, held in Midlands warehousing, and released into B77-B79 as you use it - so a unit at Relay Park never has to find space for a full run or pay the short-run penalty.
The mechanics are on packaging stockholding, and packaging stockholding in Tamworth covers how supply works across Tamworth specifically.
What usually turns up in a line list
Most of what looks like a packaging price problem on an estate is a specification problem. The materials are not expensive; they are being asked to do a job another material would do better, or to fill a gap that should not be there.
If you want that looked at properly rather than quoted like-for-like, a packaging review examines materials, storage, carriage, labour, damage and waste together.
The short version
- One account covers outers, protection, sealing, print and pallet consumables.
- The outer, the protection and the consumables are three decisions, and most ranges only make one of them deliberately.
- Units at Relay Park, Lichfield and Cannock are supplied off the same Midlands stock.
- Protection specified against the actual failure mode usually uses less material, not more.
- A reorder from held stock is a delivery; a reorder without it is a production run.
Frequently asked questions
Our goods keep arriving damaged. Where do we start?
With how they are being damaged rather than how much protection to add. Photographs of items as they arrived identify the failure mode - see protective packaging.
What do you supply besides cartons?
Tape and sealing, void fill, foam, films and stretch wrap, strapping and pallet consumables, protective and edge protection, printed and bespoke work - see packaging supplies.
What if our goods keep arriving damaged?
Send photographs of them as they arrived, with the packaging still around them where possible. Which face is crushed and where the fill has migrated identify the failure mode - see protective packaging.
Do you supply pallet consumables as well as boxes?
Yes - stretch and shrink film, strapping, layer pads, corner and edge protection and board tops, on the same delivery as the outers. See industrial packaging.
Do you supply other estates around Tamworth?
Yes - and Lichfield, Cannock and Nuneaton are supplied from the same stock. See packaging services for every location with a page of its own.
Can you help us reduce what we spend on packaging?
That is what a packaging review is for - materials, storage, carriage, labour, damage and waste looked at together, because moving cost out of one usually moves it into another.