Best sustainable Packaging Strategies that work 

We’re living in a world where you have to be sustainable. Many businesses are taking the plunge and providing eco-friendly practices that bolster a better, greener sort of footprint. When you’re looking at the packaging world, plenty of businesses make choices along with tradeoffs that allow them to grow. There are tons of strategies that are successful, and they promote this type of packaging, which aligns with the sustainability in your mind. Here, we’ll go over the sustainable strategies that do work. 

Packaging Material Locations 

One big thing is where it comes from. Even when the packaging seems to be sustainable, it’s negated if you have a packaging provider that’s far out.  You want to make sur that you don’t eat up the costs and any problems, as this can cause a negative footprint that impacts the goals for sustainability. It’s also far easier to get someone that’s closer to you, so getting a local source is better for this. 

Packaging amount 

You want to use the correct amount of packaging. Getting rid of any frills or anything that’s added and doesn’t bring value to the product is integral. With a lot of competition happening everywhere, businesses will get creative with the packaging that they offer. This lets them stand out, and also will help with making it easier for the packaging to be sustainable.  Using too much doesn’t look good these days, and customers will mention this.  Preserving the world around you is something worth focusing on, so make sure you’re only using what’s absolutely needed for packaging. 

Container Size 

Shrinking the packaging in order to fit into smaller container sizes is good for shipping costs, and also reduces the amount of materials that you use. 

You can also get more customized packaging that fits the product, catering to the sizes that are there 

If the business model requires it, you can also use packaging that’s standardized so you only need a few box sizes. If you can do this, it also will save you money and look better too. 

Mixing Materials 

It’s not something that you should do for your final packaging. For instance, plastic and paper shouldn’t be mixed, since they won’t be easy to recycle. 

If there are different materials that are put together, you won’t be able to separate them for packaging and recycling. 

So, choose one or the other. Corrugated packaging is totally recyclable, and provided you use eco-friendly links and tape, you’ll be able to create a sustainable solution. 

Less Virgin Pulp 

You want to make sure that you use virgin pulp less. Virgin pulp is done by cutting new trees down. This is actually not good for packaging and ends up creating a problem down the line. Packaging materials that come from recycled materials is actually way better. Try to go for these, as they can offer a better result. 

Avoid the Instances of Over Packaging 

You want to make sure that you don’t put too much in a bag. This is during the manufacturing, or even the retail step. There are tons of touch points, and you want to make sure that you don’t have too much in a container. 

You should make sure that if you’re going to put multiple things together they won’t be messed up by doing so. Be mindful of the types of packaging that you offer, and from there, create sustainable, easy solutions that’ll impact every aspect that you have.

Try this, and you’ll see great results in the packaging that you have to create a sustainable, better future. n

How to make Sure your Products are safe when Shipped 

There’s nothing worse than having a reputation damaged by items that were shipped. Customers get mad, they’ll want a return, and it’s bad for the reputation on all fronts. 

Making sure that the items which are delicate return to their customers safe and sound from the moment they’re thrown in the box is important. 

It’s much easier said than done for a lot of people though, as this can be a problem. Here, we’ll go over the best ways to make sure that your items are safe and secure when shipping them to others. 

Breakage: the Achilles Heel for Shipments 

Shipping and its damage are bad for your brand. 

Delicate glasses, artwork that’s intricate, even electronics that are not properly protected get damaged during shipping. This can lead to losses and damage. 

Having a good reputation ultimately depends on the deliveries and their success.  It’s vital to reduce the breakage occurrence when fulfilling items. 

Breakage not only is bad for profits but also the image of the brand.  Damaged items do look bad for businesses, and it will cause these negative reviews to plague the place. By understanding the underlying reasons for breakage, including bad packaging, the mishandling by carriers, and bad cushioning materials, you’ll be able to implement the proper strategies so that everything gets to where it needs to be safe and sound. 

There are a lot of items that can be vulnerable during the transit process, including figurines, ceramics, and porcelain, on top of glass.  There are a lot of other items, however, that you need to look at as well that might be so brittle that they will shatter without the correct cushioning. 

Instruments and clocks, especially with movable components, also need to be taken care of. 

Properly understanding the damage that can come with items when you ship is your best friend, as this is the best way to prevent the risks from getting worse as well. 

How to Prevent the Breakage of items: A guide 

You may wonder what steps to take? Well, we’ve got it here. 

  1. First make sure that you’ve got the right packaging.  You want a box that’s robust with different dimensions.  Double walled is the best.  Also having corrugated packaging is important, as they do minimize breakage and motion when you’re shipping items 
  2. Wrap everything with different layers of wrapping. Pay close attention to areas that are delicate such as corners.  Use tape to secure this.  bubble wrap is great for guarding against it, and when you wrap this in bubble wrap, it will prevent it from breaking down. 
  3. Use some form of padding between items including packaging peanuts or other layers of bubble wrap in order to stop collisions. 
  4. Fill out the empty spaces as well with more peanuts and paper that’s crump in order to prevent the movement and shocks of this.  You can also use foam inserts to cushion anything that’s delicate.  They will fit the items snugly, and reduce the risk of breakage and improve security 
  5. Have a sealer that will help with robustly strengthening this.  that way, you don’t have to worry about the box getting damaged or jostled 
  6. Label the box as fragile to prevent it from being roughly handled 
  7. Use a reliable shipping center known to care about items

Your packaging is important, and when you ship items that are properly secured, you’ll be happy with the results. Make sure to keep all of this in place when you start with your packaging experience too. 

Why Companies use Retail Store Displays 

Merchandising in the virtual sense is starting to use more  store displays to engage customers with these products, and also entice them to buy stuff, thereby building brand awareness. 

The proper use of these displays is to draw the user’s attention with the correct messaging, setup, and even design. 

How does one make a display that achieves this? Here, we’ll go over retail displays, and why they’re the best for those looking to showcase the merchandise that you offer. 

What they Are and Why they Matter 

Before we talk about the different displays, you need to know what they are, and the benefits of them for industry. Retail displays are different displays of your marketing on a physical level;. They include fixtures or even in-store displays to attract these customers. Engage the customers, and finally showcase or promote this merchandise. 

They’re basically like product exhibits.  This alone is enough for a lot of people, but if you further need to be convinced, it can actually increase profits by up to almost 500%.  If you look at this, you’ll see that the displays are tools that’ll attract customers, used in marketing and promotion. There are different display styles and variants too. It’s essential to know the right type of display for the needs that you have. 

Different Displays to check out. 

Now that you know why people use this, let’s talk about the different types of displays. There are a lot, including shelves, tops for tables, and also on the floor too. 

There are so many different popular options that come here. 

First, we’ve got the POP which is the point of purchase floor display. They’re free-standing presentations that draw a customer’s attention. They’re different from the fixed ones, providing opportunities for merchandising and marketing throughout different pathways and aisles, where the purchasing decisions happen. 

They come in multiple tiers, and they can display a wide variety of different products for people to check out. 

Then there are counter and tabletop types of displays.  You’ve got the tuck top and snap lock bottom. They’re small, and good for those on a budget, in order to help with promoting awareness. 

There are also larger multi-tier corrugated shelf displays that show different products on multiple shelves. 

What’s best for Me? 

This is a challenge that a lot of people go through because there are so many different types out there and for your industry, you might not be sure. 

Any type of industry display can work, if you should narrow this down. 

For groceries and supermarkets, there are a lot of different items, including beer, foods, wine, household items, even pet food. Typical displays can include shelving, aisle units, and even gondola displays for the times. 

Convenient stores are smaller, and they offer quicker experiences, and usually basics. 

While they usually tend to be smaller, you should opt for countertop options. This, of course, gives them a chance to impulse buy, or if you want to show some showcase promotions that are quick to buy. 

Specialty stores are different, as they can carry a lot of different things.  For furniture, books, clothing, electronics, and the like, there’s a lot of different merchandise. 

Garment racks usually are best for clothing stores, but not the specialty ones.  Jewelry displays are used in display cases, because they tend to be higher in value. 

But, you can also create immersive displays.  The design of different exhibits for windows, along with more immersive displays will showcase the merchandise, offering customers a chance to entice them with the products that are offered. 

Is Packaging Costing You? 

For owners of businesses, you may try to cut costs in every place that they can.  Sometimes they think that they should do so with shipping, but that’s actually a major faux pas. 

While there may be more of an upfront cost, the protective packaging that you get will actually save the business money. Whether you’re getting polypropylene or even some bubble wrapping, there’s always a chance for you to increase the shipment protection. 

Here are some ways that protective packaging lowers the cost of one’s business over time. 

Lower Returns Costs 

When items are damaged, the right thing a person needs to do is to replace that.  However, to replace it, you also need to ship these items back and eat the costs.  Even if you do avoid this part of this, allowing the customer to discard or keep the item, you’re still going to have to pay the replacement costs to ship this out, which will then triple the costs of the shipping in a lot of cases. 

Some businesses can handle this, since accidents do happen. But if you find your packaging being lackluster enough to create this problem, you’re going to be spending money on shipping that needs to be replace don the regular. This doesn’t even count the other situations where customers may want exchanges or returns to be a thing. 

Better Customer Satisfaction 

If customers are frequently at the mercy of damaged orders, they’re not going to be customers for very long. 

On the flip side, potential customers may look at your company, see all the bad reviews, and the products that are damaged. If they’re looking for reasons to choose the competitors you have over your own company, bad packaging is the final nail on one’s coffin most of the time.

Taking some time to invest in shipping does show that you do care about what you’re going to put out, and who it’s being sold to. 

What you put into protective packaging will increase customer satisfaction. Protective packaging and the manufacturers here do recommend that you always go beyond reasonable limits, in order to ensure that customers have good things they wish to say about what’s going on.

Better Unboxing Experiences 

There are a lot more unboxing experiences now than later on and have jumped over 80% in a lot of cases. They’re easy to find online, especially of people unboxing, and then reviewing these products. Packaging becomes an integral part of this.

If you’re someone who wants to invest in their packaging, it ensures that products will be safe from point A to point B, improving the customer experience. It also increases a more unique type of unboxing experience, which improves the word of mouth types of publicity.

You also can improve the values by communicating and investing in packaging that’s eco friendly. a lot of consumers are noticing this, especially when they have products that they get which are recyclable. If you want to make bolder statements with packaging, you want to make sure that the packaging delivers.  This is how you get the message passed along to others, and it will make you look even better.

Investing in packaging types and experiences will boost your ability to deliver and increase your company’s presence and chances. You’ll be able to, from this alone, boost your presence and continue with getting more people on board. 

That way, people will be happy with the results and in turn, they can see the improvements on you as a business, and other measures as well that improve your reputation. 

The Benefits of Recycled Packaging 

When you’re trying to get more customers, your packaging might be what’s holding you back. With over 70% of consumers choosing to be more eco-friendly and sustainable, if you’re a company that isn’t, it’s going to damage you.

Even “recycled” plastics may also not be recycled. They tend to lead more to landfills than to a recycling plant.

That’s why sustainable packaging that’s recyclable might be the answer to look into. 

The Benefits for the environment 

For a lot of people, packaging is crucial for protection, information displaying, and boosting your marketing.

But one conventional approach that packaging offers has also been a problem. The environmental crises have started to happen, due to the onslaught of single-use plastics, along with non-recycled types of materials.  They’ve led to landfills that are overflowing, waters that get polluted, and ecosystems that harm people.

Many consumers do understand that which is why over 80% of them actually think that these retailers will curb this plastic packaging.

What’s your alternative though? Recyclable packaging will boost the image of the brand, and bolster sales too. 

The Best Packaging: corrugated board 

Corrugated board or cardboard is considered one of the best types of packaging, not just for protection, but also on a sustainability level. 

Many corrugated boards have two types of outer layers, known as linerboard.  Then in the middle, is fluting. Fluting offers durability and is good for protecting products when they’re shipped out. 

It’s one of the best and most popular types of packaging and is used to transit items across many distances. 

Corrugated also is much more renewable, so it’s far less harmful to the world around you than plastics and other packaging. 

The Benefits of Corrugated Packaging 

There are a few benefits that come with corrugated packaging.

The first is that it does reduce waste. This is due to it being customizable, so that the material waste is eliminated. its’ formatted so that it fits around products snugly and reduces this material and interior packaging that’s used.  This is good for eliminating packaging peanuts.

Corrugated also doesn’t minimize the upfront waste, but it also reduces the material wasting that happens after you’ve shipped out something.  Corrugated is very recycled, especially compared to plastics.  Many times, a lot of it is disposed of as a residue, especially when you use this.  recycled corrugated material is better, and it reduces the energy within incinerators and waste.

It also is good for resources and energy conservation. Many recycled packaging options don’t just result in less waste transported to landfills, but it also provides a better way to conserve resources and energy. Due to the fact that corrugated is very recyclable, it’s made primarily with materials that are reused, creating more powerful results than if you just used other types of options. 

Because of the low amounts of recyclability, a lot of plastic packaging is virgin. Virgin packaging is not good for the environment, especially since many times virgin packaging is discarded into the oceans and landfills.  You also need to use more energy to build and craft new plastics.  Did you know that plastic is responsible for 3% of the total energy consumption within the US? This is actually double what the aviation industry does, so it’s important for a lot of people to look at this.

Corrugated paperboard does use energy, but it’s usually about a third of this, and a lot of times there’s far less virgin packaging with that regard.

Keep this in mind and choose the right packaging that best fits your needs.