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PACKAGING


HITTING BACK AT ECOMMERCE PACKAGING COSTS


Ecommerce businesses are facing a surge in the cost of transit packaging – a triple hit of escalating prices for materials, labour and fuel. But there is a smart way to fight back, says Jo Bradley, business development manager at Sparck Technologies...


I


t is often quite hard to see the added value in transit packaging – all the cardboard boxes or cartons, tape and ‘void fill’ that carry a consumer’s purchases to the doorstep or parcel locker. However, it’s essential for


creating a safe unit load – often for multiple items – and to protect goods from damage in transit. In addition, how a package is received, ie is prepared and presented, is fundamental to protecting, or building, brand image. There seems to be a significant number of ecommerce businesses that still take a


simplistic approach to packaging, perhaps, using a range of average box sizes and packing manually across numerous work stations. This tends to be highly labour intensive, slow and wasteful, and critically, exposes the business to the impact of rises in the cost of materials, labour and transport. Alarmingly, these costs are rising


inexorably. Take the materials involved. On an index based at 2015 = 100, paper and board prices in 2021 had crept up to 103.3 – but currently the index stands at 141.5. That is some increase.


30 JULY/AUGUST 2024 | FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS


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