If you have items that you’re going to be shipping, be it as part of your business or for other personal purposes, the proper preparation of these items and their transport will help to ensure that everything stays safe while in transit. Otherwise, you could wind up with a mess when the people receiving the items finally open them or unload the container that they were sent in.

To help you ensure that everything you send or ship arrives safely and in one piece, here are three tips for preparing items for transportation.

Break Them Down As Much As Possible

While you might think that it will be easier for everyone if you keep items in their completed form when traveling, this actually could put them at huge risk for breaking, especially if you put the items together yourself in the first place. Because the insertion points of certain items can be weaker, it’s very common for things like furniture to break at these points if not properly prepared for transit.

Knowing this, you should try to break down the items that you’re transporting into as small of elements as you deem safe. Disassembling things will help ensure that each part stays safe and maintains its integrity so that it can be put together correctly when it’s done being transported.

Guard Against Spills

Depending on what it is that you’re transporting, you might need to be concerned with spills. Anything that contains a liquid or a gel could get spilled when in transit, so it’s up to you to figure out how to guard against these spills.

As a good rule of thumb, anything that could be spilled should be double-wrapped when possible. By doing this, you help to create more of a barrier between that item and the other items that you’re transporting. So that even if the item does spill, there’s less of a chance for it to escape its container and wrap to ruin other items.

Find Ways To Absorb Shock

When something is being transported, there’s always going to be some bumps that happen along the way. And while small bumps usually won’t break anything, bigger bumps can cause items in transit to break. To guard against this, you’ll want to find ways that you can absorb some of this shock that might be taking place.

On a smaller level, you can wrap fragile items in bubble wrap or packing paper to help give them a bit more of a cushion. And for larger items, using things like moving blankets or securing items together can help to reduce shock and give items a better chance of surviving bumps that happen in transit.

If you want to make sure that any items you’re shipping or sending off will be as safe as possible in transit, consider using the tips mentioned above as you prepare your items for transport.