TrueSave is a mail-order company that ships electronic products from its warehouses to customers worldwide. The company' s shipping manager is proposing that customer orders be packed with newer, more expensive packing materials that virtually eliminate damage during shipping. The manager argues that overall costs would essentially remain unaffected, since the extra cost of the new packing materials roughly equals the current cost of replacing products returned by customers because they arrived in damaged condition.
It would be most important to ascertain whether the products shipped by TrueSave are more vulnerable to incurring damage during shipping than are typical electronic products in order to determine whether implementing the shipping manager's proposal would have the argued-for effect on costs.