To go along with the holiday season, The American Institute for Packaging and the Environment recently published a brochure aimed at improving the environmental sustainability e-commerce packaging. The brochure, titled Packaging: At the Forefront of E-Commerce Growth & Sustainability, explains the roles of e-commerce packaging, strategies that packaging manufacturers, product marketers and retailers use to minimize product damage, and ways in which the packaging industry continues to find innovative solutions to do more with less. The brochure offers the following “Four Rs” to readers: Reduce and consolidate orders delivering more products in fewer packaging. Reuse packaging, especially boxes and cushioning materials. Return packaging to local shipping store, especially cushioning materials. Recycle corrugated and other materials, including polyethylene films. According to Ameripen, US retail e-commerce sales are set to exceed $300 billion in 2014, with much of the volume occurring during the last two months of the year.Donna Dempsey of Ameripen says it is important that people are aware of the…

In the last blog we talked about the containers that cube out a truck in a Returnable Packaging System. In this blog we are going down to the next level; the internal dunnage inside of the container. This is one of the most important, and sometimes overlooked, part of a Returnable Packaging System. Internal dunnage is what actually holds and protects the part while in transit. There are many types of materials used to construct the dividers. Selecting your packaging all depends on the type of part being shipped. There are so many options when it comes to the internal dunnage, that’s why I’m going to break this into a couple of blogs on the subject. In this blog, I will discuss the most common materials used and in the next blog we will go over how the materials all come together to make a long lasting Returnable Packaging System. Coroplast is one of the most common materials used in…

In the last blog we discussed the transportation and how returnable packaging moves products. In this blog we are going to break it down to the next step – the containers inside of the truck. There are many options in every size, color, and shape when it comes to containers. These containers usually “cube” out a truck, meaning the container will stack inside of the truck with minimal wasted space. You don’t want to ship air inside of the truck, especially in a returnable system, because that space can add up to dollars over the life of a product. Containers can be broken into 5 major groups which include Bulk Boxes, Hand Totes, Sleeve Packs, Boxes, and Steel Racks. Some of these containers can be customized to suite your specific needs while others only come in standard sizes. For now I will touch on each of the most used containers, but be sure to check out future blogs that will…