Easy Steps Towards Being A Environmentally Sustainable E-Commerce Business
Being an e-commerce retailer, it's hard to incessantly shift to sustainable packaging products at once. The use of plastics is pretty evident all across the entirety of the industry, and hence it's hard for an e-commerce retailer to shift to sustainable products at once. The higher price of using sustainable products can be translated into increased shipping charges or other kinds of charges. Hence, it would result in the erosion of consumers' trust in a retailer.
Rather than an abrupt shift to overall sustainable packaging products ensuring small steps that might help a retailer gradually become a fully sustainable are a better option. An e-commerce retailer can gradually adopt practices that can help the business become fully sustainable in near future.
To help e-commerce retailers choose better, we have devised a detailed list of the steps a retailer can take in their current setup to ensure the initial steps towards the development of an eco-friendly corporation.
Before settling for sustainable packaging products, here are some of the challenges that a business might face in the initial phases.
Safety of the Product
Since most of the sustainable packaging are developed using biodegradable packaging products, these cannot withstand the same amount of impact as plastic packaging can. Biodegradable packaging is often soft, and even the smallest amount of impact can cause a depression in the outer packaging of a product. Plus, being constructed from sustainable materials, the challenges of moisture seeping in also hinders the shift to such packaging products.
These challenges make it hard for a company to fully take up sustainable packaging products at once.
The durability of the product.
Biodegradable products used in the packaging after adopting sustainable packaging materials are often made out of cardboard and paper; these are not as durable as plastic and other prevalent products used as of now. Therefore, these products do not have the kind of durability necessary for ensuring profound protection for the products.
Increase in the Cost of packaging.
Being sustainable is not cheap; small businesses operating on a sustainable decorum often charge extra and include these charges in the prices of their products, a term often used for such charges is Green Premium. Choosing an eco-friendly way of packaging products in comparison to carbon emissions emitting one would always be costlier.
Branding and Versatility
Being sustainable chips at the ability of an e-commerce retailer to be versatile with branding. Regular changes in the packaging and branding while being sustainable would be expensive, and the brand would lose the ability to reinvent itself. These are only some of the challenges that a brand would face if it takes any abrupt action to become a sustainably viable operator in the market.
To help e-retailers gradually ensure that their trade practices are sustainable, here are a few steps that can be the stepping stones towards the gradual shift to complete sustainability.
- Increased information dissemination about sustainability and reuse
Rather than using the existing funds to convert to sustainable packaging methods, a company can use its funds to brand its packaging in such a way that it could disseminate information about reuse and recycling. Such initiatives would help in increasing the existing awareness about the recycling and reuse and would also direct consumers to reuse the packaging materials sent to them.For instance, most of the time, mailing bags and the Bubble padded envelopes delivered to people are thrown out without being recycled. If the packaging can provide ideas about how these can be reused in the everyday household activities, the reuse of products can be increased, leading to sustainability.
Dissemination of such information is one of the most integral parts of starting such a process. A business can perform such a function profoundly, valid changes would become visible in the ecosystem.
- Returns with intact packaging
This step could be a hard bargain with the customers, but once its initiated, its results would add on to overall sustainability that can be achieved without any profound changes or expenses. With such a movement, a retailer would only accept returns if the product has been returned with the packaging products that it was delivered with. If the packaging does not have the right packaging, the returns would not be facilitated further.This would help a corporation cut down upon the use of the packaging material and increase the reuse of packaging materials on a significant level.
- Using sustainable products interchangeably.
Certain products, such as the stretch film produced from bamboo, have taken over the market. A retailer can undertake the use of such products and increase the sustenance of the business. These have been all the rage in the market. If the budget allows, the use of such products can ensure better and more effective pursuits toward the sustainability goals of tomorrow. At Boxomatic, we strive to ensure that every product that we sell has been ethically sourced from the right origins to increase the eco-friendly outlook of the business. For all your packaging needs, visit our website today to buy all your required packaging needs.
