An outgrowth of the Music Business Association’s Physical Business Action Committee (PBAC), the Vinyl Best Practices Task Force was created to put forth standards that would reduce damaged vinyl through the supply chain process. The task force was made up of all the major music companies, select independent labels, distributors, retailers, wholesalers and pressing plants. Together, they created the product dimension & shipping standards outlined below and released them publicly in May 2022. Since then, committee members continue to talk with operations & shipping departments to enforce the use of these standards and discuss changes as new shipping products & methods are implemented.
Identified Issues Causing Damaged Vinyl
1) Materials used for shipping boxes at times not adequate
2) Weight of carton at times not adequate
3) No Industry-wide set of standards or best practices
Task Force Findings
Materials used for shipping boxes at times not adequate
- Shipping boxes need varying material standards based on use
- Direct to Consumer
- Inner shipment boxes
- Outer shipment boxes
- Void fill material isn’t standard – mostly inadequate amount used
- Reused inner boxes as outer boxes
- Reused cartons cause issues
- No buffers used
- Gage of cardboard is too low
- Regular slot containers
- Heavy boxes combined with low gage cardboard
Weight of carton at times not adequate
- Per carton type piece count standards are needed
- Weight /unit limit needed
No Industry-wide set of standards or best practices
- No standardized ECT (Edge Crush Test) recommendations for inner/outer packaging
- No standardized piece count recommendations for varying ECT numbers
- No Best Practices range from very specific to general
- Materials used for boxes and fill
- Tape used to seal cartons
- Guidelines in handling and packing of vinyl
- Identifying damaged goods and not shipping them out
- Packing
- Sealing tape
- Stacking in box
- Palletizing and stacking of pallets
Task Force Recommendations
Materials used for shipping boxes
- Ideal standard outer shippers of 44+ ECT
- Standard outer shippers of 32 ECT are not sufficient
- Ideal standard inner shipper of 32 ECT
- CDF carton shipping limit to 3 units
- No reused cartons
- Tape to seal the cartons to be approximately 3 inches wide and 72MMX100M
Amount of Weight/Units per carton
- Outer shipper of 44+ ECT max units of 40 or 40 pounds
- Inner shipper of 32 ECT max units of 10
- CDF shipping max 3 units per pizza box
Design of Boxes
- Full Overlap needed
- Buffer in design
Industry-wide set of standards or best practices
- Standardize ECT (Edge Crush Test) recommendations for inner/outer packaging
- Standardized piece count recommendations for varying ECT numbers
- Best Practices range from very specific to general
- Materials used for boxes and fill
- Tape used to seal cartons
- Human direction in handling and packing of vinyl
Best Practices for packing of vinyl in boxes
- Void Filler should be used until there is no movement of units inside of box when sealed • Product should not be placed in with all spines facing one direction
- Tape to seal the cartons to be approximately 3 inches wide and 72MMX100M
- Tape should be used directly on cardboard
- Tape should be placed across the box in both directions forming an + as well as a sealing of the top when not using an automated process
- Product to be placed in boxes should not exceed weight or unit count recommendations
- When placing product with gatefold or uneven thickness – place ½ of product in one direction and the other ½ in the other direction resulting in a flat surface on top of full box
- Do not overfill or under fill a box
- Top should close snuggly while not pushing in on vinyl
- Pallets should not be stacked
- Uniform boxes will allow for better stacking on the pallets
Click here to access these guidelines as a PDF document.
