What to Do When a Shipment Arrives Damaged

Whether you are the one receiving a damaged pallet or the one whose customer received a damaged parcel, the same principle applies: the claim is decided by evidence gathered before anything is tidied up.

Photograph before you unpack

The single most common reason claims fail is that the packaging went in the bin before anyone thought about a claim.

Take photographs in this order, before removing anything:

• The parcel or pallet as delivered, all sides, with the label visible
• Any crushing, puncture or water marking on the outer packaging
• The packaging opened but not unpacked, showing how the contents sat
• The damaged goods themselves, in the packaging
• The damaged goods removed, close up

That sequence tells a story a claims handler can follow. Photographs of a broken item on a kitchen table, with no packaging in sight, prove nothing about when it broke.

Note it at the point of delivery

If damage is visible when the driver is still there, write it on the delivery note before signing. “Damaged”, or a specific note, takes five seconds.

Signing clean for a visibly damaged consignment makes a later claim substantially harder, because you have documented that it arrived in good condition. Where a driver will not wait, note that too.

The deadlines are short

Carrier claim windows are far tighter than most people assume — frequently a few days for visible damage, and sometimes a matter of hours to note it at delivery.

Concealed damage, found when the parcel is opened later, usually has its own shorter window running from the delivery date rather than from discovery. Check your carrier's specific terms now, before you need them, and put the number somewhere you will find it.

Who is actually liable

Carriers limit their liability, usually to a low figure per parcel or per kilogram unless you declared a higher value and paid for it. On a pallet of goods this can be dramatically less than the contents are worth.

They also routinely decline claims where the packaging is judged inadequate for the journey. That judgement is made from your photographs, which is another reason to capture how the contents were packed rather than only the broken item.

If it was your customer's parcel

Replace or refund first, pursue the claim separately. A customer waiting on your dispute with a carrier is a customer you are losing while you are technically in the right.

Ask them for photographs before they dispose of anything, and be specific about what you need — most people will send one blurry picture of the item unless told otherwise. A short standard message asking for the five shots above works well.

Then work out what actually failed

One damaged parcel is bad luck. A pattern is a packaging specification problem, and the photographs are how you find it.

• Crushed corners — board grade too light, or pallets stacked too high.
• Contents moved inside an intact box — not enough fill, or fill that migrated.
• Burst seams — wrong sealing pattern, or a box loaded beyond its rating.
• Whole pallet leaning or collapsed — film not anchored to the pallet base, or wrapped without tension.
• Water damage — unavoidable in transit; the answer is a liner, not a heavier box.

Each of those has a specific and usually inexpensive fix. What none of them is fixed by is a general instruction to pack more carefully — that lasts about a fortnight.

Keep a simple record

Date, carrier, what failed, and the cost. Ten minutes a month to review it.

This is how you find out that one carrier damages disproportionately, or that one product line fails repeatedly, or that everything broken went out in the box you were trying to save money on. Without the record it stays a series of unrelated annoyances.