Double-digit growth in e-commerce is creating explosive market growth when it comes to packaging. E-commerce has been a popular solution for purchasing goods since it began. This encouraged a huge demand for strong, ethical packaging solutions to protect products during the handling process and longer deliveries.
The e-commerce packaging market is now worth $49.2 billion. E-commerce has averaged just over 20% growth over the last few years – fuelled by the global pandemic and driven by market leaders such as Amazon and JD.
The e-commerce packaging market has projected a value of $98.2 billion by 2025. Demand is increasing for e-commerce, therefore, so is the desire for shorter delivery times. Multiple types of packaging need to be available at companies’ disposal ready for shipping.
Rising internet penetration and accessibility for much of the global population have created potential market opportunities for the e-commerce and packaging providers to explore untapped markets and gain considerable market share during the process.
Nowadays, e-commerce needs to be at the heart of packaging design – given the demand is skyrocketing. In particular with corrugated packaging. Designers also need to be clever with their work to ensure the company’s brand is clear and concise.
Medical/ Pharma packaging in high demand
The global pandemic has had a monumental impact on the pharma & medical packaging sector, with demand reaching heights that were once unimaginable for some companies.
The inclination to act fast, combined with expert industry knowledge, has become vital to make healthcare products available.
Many packaging manufacturers have had to accelerate the development of certain projects during the pandemic to meet the demand for urgent packaging concepts for life-saving products such as hospital medical devices and vaccines.
The increase of home deliveries for medicines and pharmaceuticals has massively increased because of the pandemic. This is where e-commerce within packaging has seen a dramatic shift in the last two years in particular. The development timeline of the Covid vaccine has been unprecedented, as has been the scale of its distribution.
Since the creation of numerous different types of vaccines; transport, storage and distribution requirements have varied. For example, some vaccines have to be stored at temperatures as low as -80°C. Vaccine manufacturers not only need to speed up their production to meet strict deadlines, but it is critical that they also secure global packaging partners to protect their products throughout the unfamiliar complex supply chain.
E-commerce challenges
The main complaints about e-commerce related issues tend to be leaking fresh meat and laundry or cleaning detergent packaging. This is usually a result of poor materials used that were not intended to go through the e-commerce cycle to the consumer. In reaction to the issue of leaking liquids within e-commerce, packaging manufacturers are now steering away from using rigid plastic and switching to a flexible alternative. Bag-in-box is proving to be a great solution and it is also a good way to align with eco-related initiatives.
The growth of e-commerce within the packaging sector is continuously on the rise and is showing no signs of slowing down, therefore this will continue to drive innovation for new packaging solutions. Consumer trends will continue to be at the heart of these innovations running in parallel with reducing costs and enhancing performance.
At Morgan Latif, we work closely with the packaging industry and know what it takes to work in such a high demand environment. If you are searching for the perfect candidates to help enhance your company, get in touch with us today.
