Ecommerce Packaging Trends 2018

Ecommerce Packaging Trends 2018

Ecommerce continues to provide an area of growth for retailers, but it takes more than a mobile responsive website to succeed online. Attracting and converting virtual shoppers requires a very different approach than your in-store strategy.  Let’s consider ecommerce packaging.

The need for eye-catching designs is less of a priority when it comes to ecommerce packaging. The primary objective is to provide a robust means of safely and securely transporting your goods to the customer’s door (or allocated collection point). This doesn’t mean that a standard cardboard box is going to cut it.

If you are looking to gain market share in 2018, the trends point to sustainable, product specific packaging that encourages customer interaction.

Product Specific Ecommerce Packaging

The majority of customers are reluctant to make further purchases from a retailer when goods have been damaged in transit. Whilst high quality, product specific packaging will have a higher unit price than standard, off-the-shelf solutions, this small investment can save a fortune in returns and loss of reputation.

With effective use of cardboard engineering, it’s possible to create product specific ecommerce packaging that stands your brand apart from the competition. Time spent on packaging design can result in parcels that are exciting to receive, easy to open and with a twist that encourages reuse.

Printed Ecommerce Packaging

Printed packaging needn’t blow the budget. With an initial tooling set up, flexographic printing can be integrated into the cardboard manufacturing process. This provides a cost effective means of enhancing your packaging.

Until now, we’ve seen far too many plain cardboard boxes being used to ship goods, but this is expected to change over the coming year. Expect to see simple, bold and colourful designs, such as that used by Butternut Box, becoming a common feature of ecommerce packaging.

The benefits of printed ecommerce packaging include:

• Providing an opportunity to publicise your brand
• Using interactive features that encourage social engagement
• Printing barcodes to support efficient logistics and data collection
• Communicating handling Instructions to promote safe transportation
• Promoting packaging reuse and recycling

In short, it’s time to see ecommerce packaging as a means of communication. Far more than just a box, it can add to the appeal of your brand.

Aylesbury Box Company design and manufacture ecommerce packaging for online retailers. Our cardboard engineering expertise is applied to all packaging design and we offer a range of print options achieve the results our customers desire. Can we help you embrace the 2018 trends?