Courier damage claims: what to photograph before a parcel leaves

A customer sends you a photo of a mug with its handle snapped off. The courier says the box was fine at pickup. The marketplace asks you to prove the mug was packed well and left your place in one piece.

At that moment, nothing you remember counts. Only what you recorded at your own packing table counts.

Sellers often ask us how to prove a transit damage claim, and usually they ask after losing one.

We are on the other side of this too. When a PackSmith order reaches a customer damaged, we replace it or refund it, and we pay the return shipping ourselves. So we know what one broken parcel costs, and this is the evidence I would collect for every fragile order.

What evidence wins a courier damage claim?

These six records answer the questions a claim reviewer asks about transit damage, and each one needs the order ID or AWB label visible in the frame (AWB is the courier's tracking number). Take the first four as photographs, cover all of them in one continuous packing video, and keep evidence that the courier collected the box.

The product, unwrapped, with its serial number, batch code or size tag showing.
The product wrapped and sitting in the open box, with the fill packed around it.
The sealed box, with the shipping label readable.
The sealed box on a weighing scale, with the weight display readable.
One continuous packing video that covers steps 1 to 4 without a single cut.
The dispatch scan, i.e. the courier's pickup scan or the manifest signed at handover.

If you can manage only one, make it the video.

This guide is about breakage and crushed boxes. Empty-box returns and tampered courier bags are a different fight, and I have covered them in our guide to tamper-proof courier bags and return fraud.

Why does each record matter?

A claim reviewer is like your CA at audit time. Your story does not interest them. The voucher does.

Each record is one voucher, and each one has a gap that another one fills.

Record	What it proves	What it cannot prove
Product photo with label	The item was whole, and it belongs to this order	How you packed it
Wrapped product in the open box	You used wrap and fill, so the box was packed properly	That nothing moved later
Sealed box with label	The box left closed and without dents	What is inside
Box on the scale	The product was inside at dispatch	The condition of the product
Continuous video	All of the above, as one unbroken story	Anything after pickup
Dispatch scan	The courier took the box, on that date and time	The box's condition, unless the pickup person noted it

The second photograph is the one most sellers skip.

It is also the one that matters most today, because the marketplaces now look hard at how a parcel was packed, especially for anything fragile.

Packing a fragile order: hands wrapping a ceramic dish in brown kraft paper over an open carton — Photo: Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

What do Amazon and Flipkart say about damage claims now?

PackSmith is not affiliated with Amazon or Flipkart. Below is what their own published pages said when I checked them in October 2026. Rules change, so read the current version in your seller panel before you file.

Amazon.in announced in Seller Central in 2025 that from 1 August 2025, its SAFE-T policy for Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex orders no longer processes claims where the return reason is damage to the product's primary packaging or the box, or a broken or open seal. The same Amazon announcement asks sellers to pack items securely and to include clear photos when they record a return's condition.

So a crushed box alone is no longer a claim there. The product itself has to be damaged, and your own photographs are what show it was in perfect condition when it left you.

Flipkart's Seller Hub Terms of Use (2025) say that if the packaging violates standard packaging guidelines on review, the items are not eligible for Seller Protection Fund reimbursement.

Read together, both rules put your packing on trial, as much as the courier's handling.

Photo 2 is your answer.

For orders from your own website, Instagram or WhatsApp, your courier or shipping aggregator has its own claim form and its own time limit. Read it once when you open the account. The day of a broken parcel is the wrong day to learn it.

What should I keep, and for how long?

Record	Where to keep it	How long
Packing video	Phone first, then one cloud folder per month	6 months
The four photos	Same folder as the video	6 months
Packed weight	A column in your order sheet	As long as you keep the sheet
Signed manifest or handover photo	Same monthly folder, with the paper copy in a file	6 months
Customer's damage photos and chat	The order's own folder	Until the claim closes

Our advice is six months. Most return and claim windows are much shorter than that. But the same Flipkart terms give sellers 180 days to raise a money claim that no specific policy covers, so a dispute can come back that late.

On the first of every month, delete the folder that has crossed six months. Name every file with the order ID. A video nobody can find in 30 seconds is as good as no video.

How do I film every order without slowing the packing table?

The setup we suggest is simple. Make the camera part of the table, not an extra job.

Fix the phone above the table on a stand or a clamp, looking straight down. Your hands stay free, and the whole table is in view.
Keep the scale inside that view, so weighing happens in the same clip and not as a separate step.
Put the printed label face up on the table before you start. The order ID is then in the frame from the first second. Stick it on the box after sealing.
Use a cheap Bluetooth remote shutter to start and stop the recording. You press it once to begin and once to finish, and you never touch the phone with dusty hands.
Before you stop, turn the sealed box once in front of the camera, label side first, so all four sides are on record.
Pause one clip and check that you can read the order ID. If you can, 1080p is enough, and 4K only fills your phone faster.
Light the table from above. A window behind the table, or glare on a glossy label, makes the order ID unreadable.
Upload the videos after the last order of the day, not between orders.

By our count, the extra work per order is two button presses and one turn of the box.

For the dispatch scan, count the boxes with the pickup person and get the manifest signed with that count. The pickup bhaiya is always in a hurry, so keep the manifest ready before the pickup arrives. Later that evening, check that the first scan shows in tracking, and take a screenshot.

When is the damage my own fault, so the claim will fail?

This is the part nobody likes. A packing video records your mistakes too.

When sellers tell us about a claim that failed, we often hear one of these six causes. If your own clip shows one of them, the reviewer will see it as well.

No void fill. The product slides when the box is tilted. Close the flaps, shake the box, and if anything moves, add paper.
The wrong box. If it is too big, the empty top caves in under other parcels. If it is too small, there is no room for wrap and the product touches the wall. Leave about 5 cm on every side for wrap and fill, as I explained in how to pack fragile orders without plastic.
A tired, reused carton with soft corners and three old labels on it. Soft corners mean the board has already been crushed once. Cover old labels so only one address and one barcode show.
Glass touching glass. Two jars in one box need a wrap each, and something between them.
A liquid with a loose cap. One leak soaks the whole box, and a photo of a wet carton helps nobody.
One strip of tape on a heavy box. A heavy carton needs the H-pattern on both faces, as shown in how to tape a shipping carton.

Fix the packing first and file claims after. We would rather you spend one evening on a better box than lose the next claim as well.

Where does PackSmith fit, and where does it not?

We make the wrap, the fill and the tape in our own plant in Jaipur. A honeycomb paper roll or kraft paper bubble sheets go on first. Our honeycomb paper opens into a net whose cells lock into each other, so the wrap needs no tape. Then fanfold void fill paper goes into the gaps, and 48 mm brown packing tape closes the box. These are the things your photo 2 should show.

We do not make cameras, phone stands or scales, and no wrap fixes a box of the wrong size. If you are unsure which wrap suits your product, write to us with its size and weight, and we will suggest one. One more honest limit, this time of our own range. Paper wrap is for light and medium fragile items. For heavy machine parts, or parcels on wet routes, plastic air cushions still protect better, and no claim photo will change that.

If you want to test the wrap and fill on your own product before you buy a roll, our sample listing is free and you pay only the courier charge. We have been making packaging in Jaipur since 1997, and I would rather you test it than take my word for it.

Questions sellers ask

Is a packing video compulsory for a claim?

Neither the Amazon announcement nor the Flipkart terms I quoted above names a packing video. We still recommend one, because it is the cheapest evidence you can create. When a reviewer has to choose between your word and the courier's, an unbroken clip is hard to argue with.

Will photographs do instead of a video?

Yes, if you take them in order and the label shows in every one. Four sharp photographs beat a shaky video in which the order ID never appears.

The box arrived crushed but the product is fine. Can I claim?

Usually there is no loss to claim. On Amazon's Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex orders, box damage alone stopped being an eligible SAFE-T reason from 1 August 2025. Use those photographs to choose a stronger box for the next delivery.

Set up the phone stand this week and film tomorrow's orders. Then, one evening with a cup of chai, watch five of your own clips as if you were the reviewer. I am sure you will find one box you would not want a reviewer to see.