Automation, Protection, and Green Materials: How E-Commerce Is Reshaping Packaging

E-commerce and logistics have expanded quickly, and express packaging designed to protect goods has grown alongside them into an industry of meaningful scale. Against this e-commerce surge, how are packaging trends changing?

More online shopping translates directly into higher shipment volumes.

In recent years, stronger e-commerce sales and more complex channels have pushed brands to redesign their containers. In a 2022 L.E.K. survey, 86% of brand and packaging managers who said they had e-commerce sales reported changing packaging for products sold online. The survey gathered feedback from 421 people overseeing brands sold in the United States. The leading reason was adapting to automated handling, cited by 39% of respondents.

Moss noted that this choice ties to the greater likelihood that online products are picked from fulfillment-center shelves by automated systems. The second-largest reason for changing packaging was better protection for individual items, agreed by 38% of respondents. Unlike retail stores, which focus on pallet safety and uniform cubes, e-commerce orders often travel all the way to the buyer's home. Jeff Cloetingh, a managing director and partner at L.E.K., said avoiding waste from damaged or leaking products, or leaving buyers unhappy with a brand, are key motivations behind damage-prevention packaging.

That protection need has also made ships-in-own-container (SIOC) solutions more appealing. With the right design, one packaging option can withstand shipping disruptions while remaining attractive enough for product use. Children's toys and electronics such as televisions, for instance, may arrive in their exact destination packaging, and shoppers open it to install the device.

In unpublished results, L.E.K.'s Cloetingh said the survey found that more than 20% of respondents redesigned containers, eliminating three layers of packaging. A separate 2020 PMMI survey found that 40% of respondents had at least explored a switch to SIOC.

How brands choose to sell online has also shaped packaging trends in recent years. When manufacturers sell through third parties such as Amazon, they may follow retailer guidelines like 'frustration-free packaging.' Jonghun (Jay) Park, director and associate professor at the Sustainable Packaging Research Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, said these guidelines emphasize avoiding ties, clamshells, and packaging added by the shipping giant.

Direct-to-consumer shipping is gaining ground as well. A 2018 PMMI survey of brand manufacturers found that 28% had some form of direct-to-consumer sales. By the 2020 survey, 66% of brands said they had adopted that sales format. In these cases, brands seek lightweight, efficient packaging -- whether plastic envelopes or corrugated cartons -- that lowers shipping costs and fits contents precisely.

What branding appears on packaging is changing with online retail too. If a company ships direct to consumers, any secondary packaging becomes a fresh opportunity for labels, ink design, or a custom look. At the same time, Izquierdo said items in packaging may lose more elaborate features -- such as the clear window on cardboard packaging, often used to entice in-person shoppers to place an item in their cart. Labels accounted for 37% of L.E.K. survey respondents, who said they would make changes if they had recently updated e-commerce packaging.

Packaging Adjustments Turn Toward Sustainability

Recent packaging changes have come with more sustainable packaging plans, often launched before the pandemic. Nearly 47% of L.E.K. survey respondents said they had changed packaging in the past two years to use more sustainable materials. Possible exceptions include cold-chain packaging for high-value products such as seafood or steak. Yet those with 2025 sustainability goals had completed only 30% of those plans, and a higher share reported a 'significant gap' in their ability to meet the goals.

Driving more online sales means retailers are eager to avoid damaged goods. Beyond cost, excess emissions can result when products are manufactured, packaged, and shipped only to go straight into the trash or be returned through reverse logistics. Moss said, 'When we see market participants tactically choosing not to take the sustainable packaging route, it is often intentional and largely well justified, particularly in the e-commerce space.'

Park said that avoiding product waste in online sales while meeting sustainability goals may not always be intuitive. Bulk food purchases, for example, surged early in the pandemic and remain popular as shoppers grapple with inflation. But oversized packaging can contribute to food waste, sometimes making smaller portion sizes a more sustainable design.

In all cases, and especially where design choices aimed at sustainability or emissions reduction are less obvious, sources said brands still have room to improve how they communicate those choices to customers. Traditionally, information was shared through packaging design or symbols, such as the logo of the International Forest Stewardship Council, but QR codes or other smart packaging systems may become part of how brands share design choices or intended disposal methods in the future.

Green, Healthy Development Gains Momentum

Express packaging does more than protect mailed goods well; it can also promote corporate culture. It can make an e-commerce company's brand effect more prominent, raise consumer brand awareness, and strengthen brand recognition. Express packaging can also be viewed as a mobile billboard. Therefore, express packaging designers should strengthen brand design. While meeting circular economy needs, they should handle express packaging brand design well and use materials with better recyclability to make express packaging, truly achieving multiple cycles of reuse.

Because logistics companies and online merchants keep tight control on costs, plastic bags, tape, and similar items are mostly hard-to-degrade plastic products. Meanwhile, waste such as express packaging filler can be seen everywhere, and a large amount of express packaging material is difficult to recycle and reuse. This makes the express packaging industry urgently need to shift toward green packaging.

The 'green' development of express packaging has a major impact on the operating costs of e-commerce merchants and logistics enterprises, while consumer awareness of packaging recycling and sorting remains weak. In view of this, government policies should act as the driving force, with e-commerce and express delivery enterprises as the main body and the whole industry chain working together. This can promote the use of degradable materials in express packaging and the development of models for multiple recycling and reuse of express packaging.

Among them, whichever downstream manufacturer can launch green, environmentally friendly products with a certain cost advantage can seize the market opportunity first.

The express logistics application materials industry is an upstream supplier to express logistics enterprises. It provides various express logistics application materials, mainly including electronic waybills/express waybills, woven bags, plastic bags, envelopes, packaging boxes (corrugated cartons), and tape.

The rapid development of the express logistics industry has led to substantial growth in the market size of the express logistics application materials industry. In the coming years, the industry's supply capacity for green products is expected to grow rapidly, and the short- to medium-term supply-demand balance in the industry will remain sufficiently flexible.

-- This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379408.html