7 ecommerce packaging developments that rocked 2017

Yes, Amazon made news this year—more than once—for its leadership in e-commerce and packaging. But sustainability challenges and packaging strategies for this flourishing market also captured your attention in 2017.

Continuing our review of the year’s top articles on PackagingDigest.com based on page views, we now focus on packaging for online sales, which Deloitte predicts will exceed in-store sales this holiday season for the first time. Why does that matter to packaging departments? Some 65% of respondents to a Packaging Digest poll say e-commerce is either partially or fully integrated into their core business—meaning it’s also their responsibility. Ecommerce—and its impact on packaging—matters.

What best practices for ecommerce packaging are emerging?

Packaging Digest conducted the poll mentioned above during our highly successful July webinar “Ecommerce Packaging: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting it Right from the Start.” (If you missed it, you can still watch it on-demand by clicking the link.)

To get a sense of where the industry currently is, during the 1-hour event, we asked participants to answer two burning questions:
 

1. Is there a standard transit test packaging departments are using for their e-commerce shipments?
 

2. Are most companies integrating their growing e-commerce enterprise with their brick-and-mortar business?
 

We’ve already spilled the beans on the second question: Yes, about two-thirds of respondents say they are integrating e-commerce into their core businesses.
 

Results to the first question, however, revealed that there isn’t a transit test that stands out as the “standard” yet (see chart above). Perhaps that will change as time goes on.