4 Key trends to define growth of corrugated packaging
In the times of COVID-19, there has been a surge in e-commerce activity driving demand of corrugated packaging. The corrugated packaging industry is growing at a steady rate owing to the surge in the e-commerce and advancement in digital printing technologies. Furthermore, use of corrugated packaging backed by various government awareness schemes in India is creating a demand for the use of these boxes in the packaging market. As a result, more and more people are opting for the manufacturing of paperboards.
E-commerce: With an increase in the online shopping for items such as food and beverage, retail and pharmaceutical, there is an impact on packaging demand, mainly in the corrugated industry as it accounts for about 80 per cent of demand in the e-commerce sector. For the logistics chain for straight to customer delivery e-commerce packages are supposed to be handled multiple times during normal distribution. That means there is a rising demand for cost-effective secondary corrugated board packaging.
Fit-To-Product: The e-commerce surge is also driving new demand of fit-to-product (FTP) or box-on-demand methods, driven in general by the demands of dedicated e-commerce companies like Amazon and Flipkart. This enables manufacturing of customised secondary packaging based on the original size of the product being packed, including inconsistent shapes. In addition, for end-user, this reduces the requirement of large inventories of standard-sized boxes.
Sustainability: With rising environmental awareness, sustainability is the new mantra for industries across sectors. Corrugated board is garnering popularity in the packaging industry as sustainability becomes a more important issue. Corrugated board is quite easy to recycle and the pulp and paper industry is aware of this fact. As a result, sustainability has given a boost in the popularity of corrugated protective formats over polymer-based options.
Digital Printing Technology: With the advancements in the digital printing technology, corrugated packaging has developed a growing interest for adoption of the process and systems are now being conducted to address the demands of the high-volume liner and post-print industry.
The corrugated packaging market size is growing owing to the rising awareness among customers for the sustainable packaging material along with the reusability of corrugated packaging.