How to do Eco friendly packaging for your Ecommerce store.

Eco Friendly Packaging for Ecommerce Store

Though we are into selling skateboards and growing the skate scene in India, this article is slightly off topic but one of the crucial articles on our website. We can all see the way plastic use has gone up so rapidly in the past few years. So many terrestrial and aquatic lives are suffering due to this. Since we run an ecommerce website, where packaging and delivering a product safely to customer is at the highest priority, it’s very important to get this right. For past year (2021-2022) we were researching on how can we do green packaging for our operations. The issue with the green packaging is that it’s a bit expensive and have to be ordered in huge quantities or the packaging suppliers do not show interest in your requirement. This article is going to solve most of the problems and help you to go towards green packaging efficiently and by not spending much from your pockets :).

Before we proceed further: Yes, there is one tendency by most of the sellers to give the best unboxing experience to their customers. In the process of doing this few sellers go to any extent which at times creates lots of waste items. At the end of the day all that customer wants is a solid product and a good after sales service :) (Best unboxing experience is at the least priority for any customer if product and after sales service is top notch). So do consider the nature, the soil which we live on, the air which we breathe when you pack a product. Everything is nature, and we have to preserve it. Especially the younger generation has to bring this change for a better future of upcoming generations. So slight sacrifice in profits (Packaging cost) and unboxing experience is ‘OK’. None of us are going to live forever, but the planet has to :).

In Green packaging also there is large enough room to show your creativity and give the same unboxing experience as you would by using other waste items. Only issue is we have to put some more time and efforts, which is the reason most of the sellers avoid doing it. I have tried to explain our green packaging experience in as simple way as possibleJ. If anyone has any better ideas and solutions please put a comment below so we all can grow and improve together. This article is specifically considering Indian market availability.

1-Recycling
Most of the times the products which you sell on your website comes with plastic packaging from your factories/manufacturers. You can easily reuse it for your products for packaging. Yes, we do agree it’s a bit of an extra work but it’s totally worth it. Positives are its free, you are reusing the plastic and thus helping in saving environment. All you need to execute this is proper guidelines for cutting the plastic in desired dimensions as per your product, and making the bag using heat sealing machine. Heat sealing is a simple and a brilliant machine which helps in sealing the joints of any plastic bag. You have to adjust the temperature of the machine depending on the thickness of the plastic you are using. There is no specific rule book on how to use Sealing machine, you will have to do few trials and errors to get the temperature right. There are a lot of youtube videos on how to use a sealing machine. Let us know in the comment section below if you want us to make a tutorial on how to use a sealing machine.
Link for the heat sealing machine (India) - Heat sealer machine link - Click here

2-Courier bags
For courier bags, most of the ecommerce businesses use the plastic courier bags which are typically white in colour. These bags are one of the main reason for the plastic waste created by an ecommerce website. Generally all new sellers use these bags to start with as they are easily available and cheap. We too had started our journey with this bag back then, but we realized it quickly its very damaging to the environment. To tackle this problem there are two best solutions easily available in the market. One is making corrugated boxes and second is paper packaging bags.

Paper packaging bags are new in the industry and generally requires high volume and finding the right supplier who makes strong paper bags like the ones Amazon have started using is tough. We haven’t found one yet, our research is on. Moment we find one we will update this section. If anyone who is reading this have any information on the paper packaging supplier do comment in the comment section below :).

Corrugated boxes are the best solution for courier bags option. It may look that the corrugated box will be on the expensive side compared to any other solution. But as per our research this is the best win-win situation for both the customer and seller. It may cost max to max Rs2 to Rs3 more than plastic alternatives. But on the positive side the boxes give much better unboxing experience than any other packaging materials. Products remains much safer in boxes. You can also get your boxes custom made by printing your brand name on top of it (Using screen printing technique).

The second issue which comes with corrugated boxes is when you have products which are of different dimensions, so making one universal box for all the products becomes tough. We too faced this issue in our operations. To tackle this you have to put your creativity and problem solving capacity at top most level.
To ship any products there are a few thing you should consider/Do:
a - Courier charges:
You have to make the box such that it falls under 500gms,1kg,5kg,10kgetc etc brackets provided by your shipping partners. This will help you from the weight discrepancy expense received from your shipping partner/aggregator.

b - Sorting your products:
Sort your products with respect to different weight categories (Both volumetric and normal weight). Depending on this make various weight groups for your products. Make one box for each weight group. It may seem too many types of boxes for shipping and inventory, but in the long run it does pays off economically with saving the environment and also enhances the customer’s experience.

So as per our experience the corrugated boxes are a clear cut winner in this scenario. Paper packaging we cannot comment much for now as it’s new to Indian market. Paper may have an insecurity of being torn off in transit, hence we have not researched much into it. Boxes are way safer, economical, safe for environment and good unboxing experience. Ticks all the boxes for packaging :). 

 Rough pricing of per box so that you have rough idea of the cost.
The top most in the image(86cmx23cmx15cm) - Around Rs35/- (Goa)
2nd one (84cmx23cmx7cm) - Around Rs25/- (Goa)
3rd one (25cmx12cmx7cm) - Around Rs6/- (Goa)
4th one (13cmx13cmx7cm) - Around Rs4.5/- (Goa)

3 – Paper Rolls:
Paper rolls are often needed while packaging either to fill in empty space or to roll a product inside the paper. Usually plastic bubble wraps are used for this, but normal paper does the job almost equally efficiently.
Where to source paper rolls for cheap?
The best solution for this is your local newspaper printing press in your locality. Tip will be to select your local language newspaper. Avoid well known newspaper, as their operations and handling of waste paper is very strict. They have tenders and stuff to clear their wastage, so do not waste your time with them as they will not entertain your small requirement. Local newspaper will provide you with the wastage paper, they are termed as ‘Reel ends’ in their language. Here in Goa it sells for roughly Rs34 a kilo, which is quite economical and easily available.

4 – Adhesive Tapes:
For adhesive tapes our research is still on to find the best solution. Usually the paper tapes are termed as Kraft paper tape. They are made of same material used in making corrugated boxes of thinner GSM. The problem with paper tape is they are expensive and the roll is quite heavy to use. Masking tape is also one good solution to solve this problem. We are yet to finalize the best solution for this problem. Once we have cracked it we will update this section :).

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