Case study · Tareweight Fulfillment Consulting

One parcel in fourteen arrived broken. Now it's one in fifty.

Slipstone Pottery Supply sells glaze, bisque ware and kiln shelves to studios and schools from a warehouse outside Asheville, North Carolina. In six months their damage rate fell by more than two-thirds. They didn't change carrier.

ClientSlipstone Pottery Supply The workPacking audit and redesign WhenFebruary to August 2027 Fee$9,000, fixed
7.2% → 2.0%of orders ending in a damage claim, the quarter before against the quarter after
$16,557saved each quarter, after paying for the new packaging
87%fewer claims for broken glaze jars

The problem

Lorena Vasquez co-owns Slipstone, and she used to start every Monday with the weekend's photos of broken jars. In the three months to January 2027 the company shipped 9,600 orders and paid out on 691 damage claims. Each one cost $41 on average in replacement stock and a second shipment: $28,331 for the quarter.

She had already moved most parcels to a second carrier. It hadn't helped, and she was pricing a third when a customer who runs a school ceramics program gave her our name.

What we found

We left the carriers for later. We spent two weeks in February reading all 691 claims: the customer's photo, the packing slip, the box size, who carried it. Then we sorted them by what broke.

Fig. 1 · What broke in the 691 claims, November 2026 to January 2027

Two patterns explained 419 of the 691 claims. Glaze jars broke when seven or more shared a box with only paper between them. Bisque broke in the 18-inch cube, a box so roomy that packers filled half of it with paper, and paper flattens on the road.

The carriers turned out to be even. One handled 5,900 parcels and 7.3% of them drew a claim. The other handled 3,700, and 7.0% did. The trouble was inside the box.

What we changed

Before touching a packing bench, we tested. Forty parcels packed the old way and forty packed a new way went 900 miles to a friendly warehouse and back. Seven of the old ones came home with something broken. One of the new ones did.

  1. 1
    Every glaze jar gets its own cell. Molded pulp trays hold six jars each, so glass never touches glass, and no box takes more than two trays.
  2. 2
    Three boxes replaced the cube. Bisque ships in the smallest box that leaves two inches of fill on every side. A card at each bench shows which box fits which order.
  3. 3
    Kiln shelves travel on edge. Movers pack dinner plates upright for the same reason. Each shelf goes in a slim carton with corner guards.

One bench ran the new method through March. All three switched on Monday, April 12.

What happened

The rate dropped the month the benches switched and has stayed near 2% since. In the three months to August, Slipstone shipped 10,150 orders and had 203 claims.

Fig. 2 · Orders ending in a damage claim, % by month
7.4
7.4
6.7
7.1
6.9
4.3
2.4
2.1
2.0
1.9
Fig. 3 · Claims by what broke, before and after
Glaze in glass jars
304
41
Bisque ware
221
88
Kiln shelves
97
22
Everything else
69
52
Three months to January, 691 claimsThree months to August, 203 claims
Fig. 4 · What a quarter of damage costs
Claims, three months to January$28,331
Claims, three months to August$8,323
Difference$20,008
New packaging, 34 cents an order−$3,451
Better off each quarter$16,557

At that rate, our $9,000 fee was paid back in about seven weeks.

“I was sure it was the carrier. They spent their first two weeks reading our damage emails instead of agreeing with me, and then showed me a table I couldn't argue with.”

Lorena Vasquez, co-owner, Slipstone Pottery Supply

What it didn't fix

Bisque ware is still the weak spot, with 88 claims in the latest quarter. Some thin-walled pieces crack inside a well-packed box. That is now a conversation between Slipstone and the pottery that makes them.

The new packing is also slower. A glaze order takes about 25 seconds longer at the bench. Curtis Hale, who runs the benches, calls it a fair trade: “The card tells you which box. Nobody stands there guessing anymore.”