The Impact of Packaging Materials on Shipping Costs in E-commerce
These days it has become really simple and easy to order things online and then wait for them to reach us. Thanks to the internet and other things that have made it possible to do so. All the favourable things have led to the rise of the E-commerce sector.
E-commerce has seen an excellent growth rate in the past decade and it is not gonna stop anytime soon. People like Jeff Bezos who have seen its potential have earned millions and billions of dollars. Not just him there are many more people like him who have earned a lot and are still earning.
Getting inspiration from these people who are now multimillionaires and billionaires many people are getting into the ecommerce business. But running a business is not as easy and luxurious as it looks. As many things affect a business directly. One of those things is Inflation.
Most of us are aware of inflation and what it is. If you are someone who is running a business then you will realise that inflation is a permanent enemy that is going to stay. According to the Federal reports in the USA, inflation is considered the No.1 enemy in their economy.
Due to inflation, many businesses had to cut costs due to the high inflation rate. One of the ways to cut costs is through packaging and shipping costs.
In this blog, we will talk about the impact that packaging material has on shipping costs that an E-commerce business has to bear.
How does packaging affect a business?
Let it be a small brand or huge company packaging is important for all of them. When we are talking about the packaging we are including the product packaging as well as the courier packaging.
As both of them have an impact on sales as well as the cost of shipping. Not just that these days packaging is an important aspect of a business as well as marketing.
We are going to list some of the benefits of good packaging:
Increases sales
More than 40% of people say that they buy a product by judging its product packaging. Packaging has become an important aspect these days. Especially when all the fellow competitors are doing all kinds of tricks to attract all the customers.
Good packaging that tells your customers about your brand and its beliefs that resonate.
Building brand awareness
Brand awareness is something that every progressive and growth-oriented business is looking for. Brand awareness stands for the amount of your targetted audience that knows about your brand or products.
A good packaging plays an important role when it comes to building brand awareness.
Better customer experience
We know that these days on several social media platforms a huge amount of unboxing videos are being uploaded and viewed millions of times.
This sole thing shows how important it is to make sure your customer gets a memorable experience.
Save environment
This one might come to surprise as most of the single-use plastic comes from the packaging industry. But if you want you can change this by using more of the environment-friendly components.
The best way to help to tackle this problem would be by using recycled material in your packaging which would result in green as well as sustainable packaging that will help to reduce the pressure on non-renewable resources.
How to decrease shipping costs in E-commerce?
Now we have reached this section where we will discuss the ways and methods to decrease shipping costs in your e-commerce business.
Here, we will talk about product packaging and protective packaging where we can find some ways to cut off some costs.
Use courier bag
A courier bag is a well-known and popular packaging solution that most eCommerce businesses use. If you are not using them then this is your sign to use them.
As we are looking for ways to save money this is a smart way to do so. As courier bag does not weigh as much as a box does and they are tamper-proof as well quite durable.
This is a good option if you are looking for ways to lower your shipping cost.
Custom boxes
If you have something that must be shipped in a corrugated box then this is something worth investing. There are many benefits of using customized packaging that will provide a boost to your business.
Custom printed tape
If you are thinking that the above options might not fit your budget then you can go for another way to customize your packaging. We are talking about custom printed tape that can be used as normal tape which will act as custom packaging as well.
This will help in saving costs on packaging as well on shipping as the weight of the tape is not gonna make a much difference in weight.
No overpacking
This is a huge problem that is faced by waste management as well as the customers. Overpacking is a waste of all the resources that the company is providing as well as the time required to pack such parcels is high.
When this overpacked package reaches the customer then the unboxing experience of the customer also gets ruined. As the customer does not have a good experience with the brand and they will not buy products from your brand.
Use recycled material
As we have talked about this aspect of saving the environment. It is a great strategy to use recycled material, it not only saves costs in manufacturing as well as shipping but also helps to improve the brand image by saying that your brand or company is green or sustainable.
Both of these things are trendy in the market it will prove to be a great move.
Conclusion
Now, we have discussed a lot of things in this article which was about the impact that packaging material has on shipping costs in e-commerce.
Where we have discussed the impact of inflation on the business ad how the business is cutting its costs. Then we proceed to talk about an important aspect of a business which is packaging that takes up a lot of wallet of share.
We learnt about the importance of packaging as well as the ways we can save costs during shipping in the packaging.
That was all for now, thank you for reading till the end.
Suman Mandal has been in the packaging industry for a long time. She is passionate about the innovative ways this industry comes up with. Currently, she is writing for To The Packaging about various packaging solutions.