After VanMoof realized its high-end bikes kept getting damaged when shipped to customers, the Amsterdam-based bicycle manufacturer came up with a simple fix: print an image of a flat screen TV on the side of their boxes.
VanMoof, which started shipping bikes eight years ago, tried using every shipping company it could, "[y]et no matter who was doing the shipping, too many of [the] bikes arrived looking like they'd been through a metal-munching combine harvester," said Bex Rad, VanMoof's creative director, in a post on Medium.
"Anyone in the [e-commerce] world knows you're only as good as your shipping partner. Your covetable products, your frictionless website, your killer brand — they all count for nothing when your delivery partner drops the ball," Mr. Rad wrote in the post.
The company saw immediate improvements once the TV images were added to the boxes, since shippers thought they were transporting expensive flat screens, instead of (similarly expensive) bikes, reported The Verge. Shipping damages dropped by 70 to 80 percent, according to Mr. Rad.
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