Everything I changed after three shipping-damage claims in one month

Three claims in one month forced me to rebuild how I pack, and it is worth writing up in full because most of it was avoidable.

The first claim was a cracked screen on a phone I wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap inside a poly mailer. I had shipped forty phones that way without an issue, which is exactly why I kept doing it. Forty successes hid a bad process.

The second was water damage. The box sat on a wet loading dock somewhere and the corrugation wicked it straight through. Nothing inside was sealed.

The third was a screen separation on a device that arrived technically working but visibly opening at the seam, which the buyer photographed and opened a claim on within the hour.

What I changed, in order of how much it mattered:

First, every device now goes into a sealed anti-static bag before anything else touches it. That single change would have prevented the water claim outright.

Second, I stopped using poly mailers for anything with a screen. Rigid box only. The cost difference is about forty cents a unit and it has already paid for itself several times.

Third, I fill voids properly. A device that can shift inside the box will eventually land on a corner, and a corner impact is what separates a screen from its frame.

Fourth, I photograph the device powered on, then the packed box, then the sealed box, before every single shipment. Two of my three claims were resolved in my favour on the strength of those photos alone.

The part I got wrong for a long time was treating packing as overhead rather than as margin protection. A claim does not just cost the device, it costs the shipping both ways, the fees, the time, and usually the feedback too.