Packaging and E-Commerce

Asia Pacific Region and Kerry Sanders, Vice-President, E-Commerce from EFI

2017. Corrugated boxes represent a large proportion (80%) of the value of the e-commerce packaging market and is expected to grow to 83% of world e-commerce packaging value by 2027.

Total global sales of corrugated board for boxes (referred to as corrugated

Q: What are the biggest e-commerce packaging trends for brands/retailers?

Kerry Sanders - An ever-increasing portion of retail transactions are e-commerce. For these retail journeys, the unboxing experience represents the brand awareness is their top goal , the box has now become an important brand activation platform. Amanda Mull, in her article, “The Package Is the Message ,” sums it up well when she states, “The experience of opening and handling a purchase can be more important than the thing itself.”

Sophisticated brands have also realised there is a social media amplification opportunity through publication of popular unboxing videos, essentially free advertising. In fact, a recent survey states that 42% of marketers solicit unboxing videos from the creators and influencers they work with to help promote their brands.

Paul Sanelli - Another emerging trend is Livestream shopping which is especially big in Asian markets. Since this e-commerce journey usually includes influencers and heavily curated shopping experiences, the consumer’s expectation about the quality of the experience, including unboxing, is higher than in a normal purchase. Plus, the influencers’ branding requirements are accommodated as well, helping them to continue to grow their following.

EFI’s innovations in digital print for corrugated allow brands and retailers to efficiently and cost effectively improve their packaging so they can deliver better brand engagement and the associated business outcomes. Our value proposition allows for better design, unlimited colours, image variation during the same print job, and faster turn-around-times. EFI digital print solutions for corrugated are perfectly aligned to deliver against these robust emerging requirements.

Q In EFI’s view, what is on-box advertising or turning boxes into billboards?

Kerry Sanders - All large retailers are creating Retail Media Networks (RMNs) with the purpose of monetising their physical and digital ecosystems through third party ad placements. For the past several years, this has mostly been about placing ads on digital channels; however, the return on ad spend for digital ads is declining due to consumers being bombarded by as many as 10,000 ads a day.

Because of this, RMNs are creating alternative ad channels to enable brands to cut through the noise and achieve better conversion and loyalty rates. An emerging category is onbox advertising (OBA), whereby the retailer allows third parties to place ads on their e-commerce shipper boxes. A recent AdAge article describes how Amazon is offering this to brands with impressive results.

According to the article, the engagement rate for OBA is 4.1x better than traditional digital ads. Interestingly, this result is achieved because OBA is not only a novel ad channel but also because OBA ad life is measured in hours/days instead of milliseconds. Since no printing plates are required in EFI’s digital printing solutions, better ad targeting can be offered to brands through regional or seasonal variation, A/B testing or variable data printing.

Paul Sanelli - In addition to brand activation and OBA already discussed, there are a few more trends to be considered. The first is Ships-In-OwnContainer (SIOC). This is a program being driven by large etailers like Amazon. Essentially, a brand can avoid additional handling fees from the etailer if their product package doesn’t have to be re-boxed for e-commerce delivery.

This is also a more sustainable solution since less packing material and shipping weight is required. EFI digital printing solutions are well aligned to the application requirements for SIOC because less rigid materials are being replaced by corrugated and lines are blurred between primary and secondary packaging (and associated decoration).

Q Has EFI conducted any research to identify the most compelling benefits of and biggest barriers to adopting digitally printed corrugated packaging?

Paul Sanelli - Yes, in late 2022 we completed both qualitative and quantitative research projects to help us understand benefits and barriers. For the qualitative research, we spoke to over 70 brands and retailers.

For the quantitative research, we conducted a survey with 800 respondents from brands, retailers, 3PLs and ad agencies. In summary, the research identified the biggest benefits: better branding, better speed to market to keep up with the demands of retail, and a more sustainable