The Future of E-Commerce Packaging

Your e-commerce margins are slimming; increasing shipping costs, rising labour shortages, and climate concerns are leading companies to re-evaluate their packaging from the ground up. What used to be a disposable protective layer is now an integral part of your overall strategy, impacting your operational efficiency, brand perception, and your bottom line.

If you’re looking to scale profitably, success hinges on three fundamentals: smart automation, smooth returns, and an uncompromising commitment to sustainability. This article is our deep dive into how taking a strategic approach to tailor-made e-commerce packaging solutions can transform your business’s packaging cost centre into an asset.

The High Cost of Inefficient Packaging

Sub-optimal packaging is the first thing that eats into your bottom line, and it also tarnishes your brand image. Ill-fitting stock boxes (off the shelf)  lead to bulky shipments full of void-fill packaging. This not only wastes material but also increases your shipping costs; dimensional weight pricing means that carriers charge you more when your boxes are unnecessarily bulky.

Damaged Products are the second cost of poor packaging. Inadequate protection means broken products, and research has found that as much as 11% of all goods shipments are damaged, and 73% of customers don’t reorder after receiving damaged goods.

Overcoming Obstacles with Bespoke Solutions

The most effective way to address these common packaging issues is to move from generic off the shelf stock boxes to a bespoke sustainable corrugated box. A custom-designed solution offers:

• The Optimal Product-to-Package Ratio – eliminating wasted space and reducing your material and shipping costs.

• Enhanced Protection – engineered to your product’s exact specifications to minimise damage.
• Superior Brand Experience – creating a memorable unboxing moment that reinforces your brand identity, delivering the wow factor to your customers.

The Key Trends Shaping Your Packaging Strategy

To build a resilient and profitable e-commerce operation, you need to adapt to the forces reshaping the industry.

Automation: Driving Efficiency and Protecting Your Margins

Automation is the most effective response to labour shortages and the demand for faster order fulfilment. The flagship of this revolution is fit-to-size packaging automation, where machinery creates the perfect box for each order, leading to between 15-20% shipping cost reductions. 

As your partner, Fencor Packaging Group provides precision-engineered packaging, designed to integrate flawlessly with automated lines and maximise your return on investment. Advances in packaging technology require consistent, high-quality materials, but also allow the use of lighter-grade corrugated board without compromising on strength. The overall result is further cutting your costs and your carbon footprint.

Reverse Logistics: Turning Returns into a Competitive Advantage

With e-commerce return rates at 15-20%, an intelligent “return-ready” packaging strategy is essential. “Return-ready” packaging is designed from the outset for a second journey. For example, we helped a horticultural e-commerce business switch from plastic trays to a bespoke cardboard solution. The new design not only eliminated the use of plastic but also secured the delicate plants for both the outbound and potential return journey, drastically reducing damage to the delicate plants and improving customer experience. 

Fencor’s structural design team works with clients like you to engineer features like easy-opening tear strips and second adhesive strips for quick and simple resealing, making the box returnable. This removes a major point of friction for your customer, while strengthening their trust and loyalty, encouraging repeat orders.

The Non-Negotiable Sustainability Mandate

For many of your customers, compliance is only the starting point when it comes to corporate responsibility; choosing sustainable corrugated packaging is a differentiator they actively reward. Corrugated cardboard is a superior environmental choice, due to its 99% recycling rate and a significantly lower carbon footprint (<1.5 kg CO₂ eq/kg) when compared to the 3-5 kg CO₂ eq/kg footprint left by most fossil-based plastics. Fencor’s commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility provides our clients with a unique advantage through our part-ownership of CorrBoard UK, the nation’s only carbon-neutral corrugated sheet board manufacturer.

The Unboxing Moment: Your Most Powerful Marketing Channel

In e-commerce, the package is the first physical interaction your customers have with your brand. Fencor’s advanced 4-colour flexographic printing ensures your brand colours are vibrant and consistent, turning every box into a premium statement. A visually appealing, “Instagrammable” design has the potential to turn every delivery into free marketing, as customers share positive unboxing moments online. The next frontier is smart packaging; by integrating QR codes into your packaging, you can transform a once strictly logistical tool into a powerful, ongoing marketing partnership.

Why Our Design-Led Model is Built for Your Business

Success in modern e-commerce requires a strategic partner, not just a supplier. Fencor Packaging Group operates on a consultative model, conducting in-depth packaging audits to design bespoke solutions that balance protection, cost-efficiency, sustainability, and your brand impact.

Our world-class 96-98.5% On-Time In-Full (OTIF) delivery performance, and our policy of maintaining 30% capacity headroom, mean you have an incredibly reliable supply chain that can easily handle any unexpected demand spikes. Our expertise in structural and graphic design, combined with our advanced in-house manufacturing facilities, ensures your packaging is optimised for every stage of your operation. And to streamline your logistics, our Stock and Serve packaging management offers just-in-time delivery to reduce your storage costs.

Build a Future-Ready Packaging Strategy

The future of e-commerce is with businesses that embrace packaging as a competitive edge. Think about automation and designing for returns and sustainability, to upgrade your business’s efficiency, profits, and resilience.

Book a call with our team, and we’ll review your supply chain, explain how custom e-commerce packaging can save you money, and it can make your brand even stronger.