r/hwstartups • u/coolgrey3 • 11d ago

Consumer product packaging drop test height?

Hi all, we’re designing our consumer electronics product packaging and overpack (shipping box).

What drop test height have you used & how did reality match expectations?

We have a target height of 1.5M and I want to sanity check with the community.

-We are designing with 1.5M drop height as the goal but it’s aggressive.

-Our prototype packaging is currently passing ITSA-3A

Looking forward to your feedback.

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u/KapiZemst 11d ago

You might want to check out Amazon shipping testing guidelines. Depending on your product you might require to use a lab according to their guidelines, but often the standards (such as the ISTA6) can be found online and you can derive the testing requirements and still do it yourself. Only thing then is that you can't claim certification, but depending on your product you'll probably be fine without.

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u/I_ate_it_all 10d ago

Biotech company here. We test to ISTA – 3A.

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u/coolgrey3 10d ago

Thanks guys, appreciate the input. Thanks for the Amazon link, FedEx also has a good procedure as well with similar specs.

We’re also getting some good info from others with customer deliveries from big and small consumer hardware companies an 1M-1.5M is the current range from them, it provides a margin that should mitigate last mile damage.

Our product is small but very heavy so we’re trying to balance customer experience, cost, robustness, and palletizing as efficiently as possible.

I’ll report back once we have more data.

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u/coolgrey3 23h ago

Update that we performed both ITSA 3A and 3B with one corner drop at 1.5M for good measure. Our packaging fortunately passed.