Mondi redesigns heavy-duty packaging for Ovoko car parts shipments, cutting costs by 42%, reducing damage

LITHUANIA – Mondi has redesigned heavy-duty packaging for online car parts marketplace Ovoko, cutting unit packaging costs by up to 42% while reducing damaged items and returns through a shape that fits car bumpers more closely.

Ovoko had been looking for packaging that could better protect large and fragile spare parts during transport. 

Its earlier packaging was described as costly and not sufficiently protective, which led to damage in transit and extra work for operations teams. 

Following testing under real shipping conditions, the design was approved, and a first trial order was supplied within two weeks.

The Bumper Problem

Car bumpers are large, oddly shaped, and fragile, cracks during shipping render them unusable, and returns are expensive for e-commerce operators. 

Standard corrugated boxes either force the bumper into an oversized cube (wasting void fill and shipping volume) or require custom tooling that is uneconomical for lower volumes.

Mondi’s solution adapted an existing heavy-duty packaging design, shaping it to fit the bumper’s dimensions closely, which removed unused space and cut material requirements.

The packaging was tested in Mondi’s ISTA-certified laboratory at its ThinkBOX e-commerce innovation hub in Budweis, simulating real shipping conditions to validate protection levels before live deployment.

The Economics of Better Packaging

The 42% cost reduction comes from two sources: less material per pack and lower dimensional weight charges from carriers. 

Dimensional weight pricing penalises underfilled boxes; a bumper that fits tightly in a custom-shaped box occupies less volumetric space than the same bumper in a standard rectangular box, reducing the shipping bill. 

For an e-commerce marketplace shipping thousands of bumpers annually, the cumulative savings are substantial. 

Agnius Skudutis, Ovoko packaging project manager, explained that the company needed packaging that was simple to assemble, cost-effective, and tough enough to deliver a high level of protection. 

As an e-commerce business with a wide variety of product sizes, Ovoko needed a packaging partner capable of packing everything from small components to large automotive parts, and Mondi listened carefully to those needs.

E-commerce Logistics Integration

Faster packing reduces labour cost per order, a critical metric for e-commerce fulfilment centres where packing labour can be the largest variable operating expense. 

Dawid Galusiński, Mondi Group e-commerce sales manager, commented that in e-commerce, it is not only the speed of delivery that matters, but the safety of the product throughout the logistics chain, adding that for large and demanding items such as car bumpers, well-designed packaging ensures the product reaches the customer in perfect condition and helps build lasting customer trust.

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