E-Commerce Supplement 2021 by PMMIMediaGroup

PRESENTS

JUNE 2021

E-Commerce Rides 2020 Boost in Adoption to Claim an Even Larger Slice of the Omnichannel Pie EC_Cover_0621.indd 1

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JUNE 2021

Shipper Plays a Starring Role In Progressive Unboxing Experience

5 Emerging Trends in E-commerce Package Design

Quick Hits from Around the E-Commerce Packaging Landscape

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JUNE 2021

Shipper Plays a Starring Role In Progressive Unboxing Experience A corrugated shipper’s primary job in e-comm is to get its contents to a consumer’s doorstep intact. But this one is able to do so with a bit of theater and flair.

By Matt Reynolds, Editor

ounded in 2015, Knack is a Seattle-based online, directto-consumer (D2C) gifting company that provides 100% made-to-order and personalized gifts from a sizable stable of trendy gift vendors. With business split roughly 60/40 between corporate gift business and individual, one-off personal gifts respectively, categories include spa, quarantine & work-from-home, coffee & tea, gourmet food, bar & wine, chocolate & confections, home entertaining, stationery & office, family games, and even ethos (see sidebar on page 4). Customers are asked to mix and match gift items and every order is different, so every package is custom. “Packaging is, of course, very important to this business. We use a gift box that is lovely and has a lot of customization associated with it,” says Laura Jennings, founder and CEO. “People who are giving Knack gifts can upload logos, upload photos, they can leave a video message for their gift recipient.” A QR code, digitally printed on either the packaging

itself or the gift card portion of Knack’s gift package—again, everything is customizable—is the delivery mechanism for those video messages. All the recipient requires is a smart phone to hover over the QR code, and the personalized message plays. “And also, we automatically produce a [bespoke] webpage for every custom gift,” Jennings says. “The gift recipient can come to the site via that QR code and learn about all the merchants who are featured in the gift. They can see other information from the gift-giver and they can even send a thank you from that site. The unboxing experience is very much a part of why our customers turn to Knack. It’s intensely personal.”

Extending the experience to the shipper

Clearly, there’s a lot of custom flair and targeted thoughtfulness going on inside the internal gift box. Knack then puts that gift box in a shipper to get it to the recipient

All a gift recipient needs to do is cut a single taped edge of the shipper, and the OPF corrugated case pops open and lays flat to present the gift inside.

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Gift givers can customize their gifts by selecting from hundreds of possibilities. No two gift orders are alike, making the format ripe for digitally printed packaging and messaging. and to keep it protected in transit. In many D2C plays, this is where the custom feel ends—the standard kraft corrugated shipper with requisite dunnage. Sometimes clever printing on the shipper or bright colors can enliven the secondary protective packaging, but the real “unboxing” experience happens with the internal contents, rarely the shipper. Knack turns that on its head by using a cleverly designed shipper, thereby extending the unboxing experience outward to the shipper itself. Called the Easy Pop shipper by Knack, the box—marketed as the Ta-Da Box™ by Salazar Packaging—delivers a “wow” moment as it pops open to reveal its contents. “The unboxing experience, it’s really important. That’s why we gift wrap,” Jennings says. “The packaging of a gift

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says a lot about the gift and the care that the giver put into it. When we started working with Salazar, we started off thinking, ‘Well, we’ll just do a custom RSC,’ which lots of people do. We’ll just customize the kind of net standard H-box. But we talked to Dennis [Salazar] about what our customer cares about. Even inside the box, we have this notion that there’s a gradual unveiling of the gift. You’ve got the shipper, then you’ve got the gift card and the belly band. And then when you take the lid off, there’s actually a sheet of vellum. So it’s really an experience. When you see a video of it in action (pwgo.to/7022), it’s almost like the pearl in the oyster. Then, all you have to do is open one side of that box— it’s sealed by a single piece of tape—and the box pops open and presents the gift to the recipient.” Adds Salazar, from a blog post from January 2021, “We were happy to quote on [Knack’s] box usage but also offered several other design options. We know that tall (over 4-in) die-cut mailers are expensive, so one of the samples we showed them was a basic one-panel folder that could substantially reduce the amount of board used, and thereby their cost per unit. However, we also noticed that our design could “pop” open for a great presentation. With some tweaks by one of our favorite designer friends, we were able to enhance that unveiling. You can almost hear the “Ta-Da” as the flaps fly open and the gift inside is exposed.”

Sustainability considerations

Knack customers care a lot about sustainability, as well. It’s a huge issue for the brand, particularly as an e-commerce business, because although corrugated is recyclable, brands are just producing so much of it. The Easy Pop (Ta-Da Box) shipper is a one-panel fold (OPF) format that Jennings says, “uses about 45% less corrugated than a traditional RSC

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JUNE 2021 and a lot less than a tuck mailer, which a lot of e-commerce companies use.” The Salazar shipper boxes are custom made to precisely fit Knack’s standard-sized internal gift boxes, so there’s no necessity for extra dunnage, no shipping of air, and no waste in the package system. This application of the Ta-Da Box uses a 200#, B-flute, kraft out/white in corrugated board, with approximately 65% recycled content that is 100% recyclable and re-pulpable. The single piece of tape that holds the OPF shipper in its 3D format from Knack to a gift recipient’s doorstep is water soluble adhesive tape that can enter the recycle stream without having to be removed from the corrugated by the consumer. Printed tapes that aren’t water soluble, often those that use cross-thread reinforcements, really should be completely removed from the corrugated to make them fully ready for the recycle stream. Plus, Jennings just preferred the more natural, streamlined look of the tape, and its unbranded nature adds to the mystery and anticipation of the outside of the box. “And then another thing, and this is kind of a minor thing compared to the right-sizing and material reduction, but it’s also super easy to recycle,” Jennings adds. “The corrugated box is already broken down once it’s opened since only the thin piece of tape needs to be broken for the OPF design to flatten itself into a recycle-ready 2D sheet of corrugated.”

Decorating the shipper

Knack’s Easy Pop shippers are flexographically printed on two sides using a standard decorative format—the customization of the gift contents it carries usually doesn’t extend to the shipper itself. Even so, if a corporate customer had enough volume to make it cost effective, the brand could print custom on a certain shipper order. According to Salazar, for order quantities from 1,000 to 3,000, “custom flexographic printing is available inside and out, as well as other techniques and finishes such as offset

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The belly band holding the gift card only is affixed to the lid, not the bottom portion of the gift carton. This allows a single belly band size to accommodate different carton heights/depths, as long as the lid is the same size. printing, litho label, or even digital printing. Keep in mind the MOQ for some of those other printing methods could be higher.” In the case of the Knack shippers, Salazar produces six different sizes to accommodate the three different footprints and three different depths of internal gift box. For all of these six sizes, the external face of the shipper is printed in one color, white on the untreated kraft background. It serves to start the consumer experience and build anticipation, stating simply, “Someone has sent you a gift,” along with the Knack logo. “This was important to us to place on the outside because people are suspicious when they get boxes and they didn’t order anything,” Jennings says. “We wanted to make it clear on the outside that this was a gift. This is not a mistake. We know you didn’t order anything from us. Somebody sent you this. But with all the color on the inside, we wanted the outside to be plain so that when a recipient opens the box, that’s where they get this pop of color.” That pop of color comes in the form of a pale orange,

Shop by Ethos for Brands that Stand for Something

ince the crucible of 2020, the already existing trend of consumers wanting brands to stand for something—usually on sustainability, social responsibility, or both—has only intensified. Recognizing this consumer sentiment, Knack has set up, among its more traditional ways to shop for

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gifts, a “Shop by Ethos” option on its site. Using a drop-down menu, consumers can shop for gifts by filtering for the Ethos of the vendor company. “We have more than 600 products on our site that people can mix and match, so we have hundreds of merchants,” Jennings says. “Let’s say

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your recipient cares about sustainability, or cares about supporting female-owned businesses, or cares about the product being made in the U.S.A., you can actually shop our site with those filters in place. You can get products that support your own values, or the values of your gift recipient.” ■

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JUNE 2021 which covers the entire interior of the shipper. Salazar reverse prints the orange color direct-to-board with waterbased inks onto white board. The same white printing on top of the orange background reinforces Knack’s branding, web address, and logo, so a recipient can begin to get ideas on where to purchase their next gift.

Digital printing and track and trace

The gifts that the shipper carries arrive in a two-piece paperboard gift box from Vivabox. Jennings says that while the lid is rigid paperboard, the bottom portion is collapsible, and are shipped as lay-flat containers to save space and avoid “shipping air” from the paperboard converter to Knack. These packs are erected and packed by hand at pack out stations. “We have a really sophisticated print shop,” Jennings says. “We have two Konica Minolta c3080 digital print systems, plus a Duplo 618 cutter/slitter. Each one of these cards is different since customers are uploading their photos and logos, not only writing and recording their unique gift messages. Also, we have a set of what we call message stamps, maybe 14 or 16 of them, that gift givers can choose

that without ever having to open the box, which would create scrap. We contact the customer and reroute it.”

Die-cut belly band optimized for efficiency

The final piece of the packaging system includes a paper belly band using two die-cut slits. Into one slit (the width of the card itself), the right-most third of the tri-fold gift card is inserted so as not to be visible on the finished pack. The other slit is a small C-shaped flap, emblazoned with the circular Knack logo in gold, that holds the gift card in place atop the paperboard gift box. “It’s quite securely held. It’s easy to get the card out, but it stays in place during shipping,” Jennings says. This belly band is available for custom messaging via the digital print shops, but there’s enough volume that Knack uses a range of standard sized offerings. The brand uses a local Seattle partner, Girlie Press, to print, die-cut, and score the flap slit. These belly bands are affixed to the rigid paperboard lid of the box, adhering to the inside bottom of the lid, rather than wrapping the entire box.

Gift card customization via digital printing allows for entirely unique, batch-size-one gifting.

or they can upload your own.” To manage the true “batch size of one” nature of so many completely unique packs, the tri-folded gift cards are printed with a perforated back edge with a 1-in overhang. This portion of paper is printed with a UPC code, plus other critical information (high-priority, air vs. ground shipping, etc.) that the operator scans then removes during pack out. That overhang tag with UPC code and additional information is then affixed by the operator to the secondary package, the Easy Pop corrugated shipper, marrying the original printed card to the external shipper it is delivered in. This allows Knack to track these many disparate gift cards, and also the gifts they are paired with by the operator, throughout the supply chain. “We know where it is at every handshake, from when it’s been printed, when it’s been packed, when it’s been made, and when it’s been shipped, all the way to the recipient’s door,” Jennings says. “We don’t really get returns in this business, but let’s say a gift giver gave us the wrong address and a gift came back to us because the address was wrong. We can just scan that UPC code on the outside and deal with

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“There’s an efficiency to this approach that’s related to logistics,” Jennings says. “We have six box sizes, but we only have three sizes of lid because some of the boxes only differ in depth. So we had to have three footprints, but then the boxes get deeper for six total formats. Affixing the belly bands only to the lid instead of the entire box means we don’t have to account for the multiple box depths. We only have to stock three sizes of belly band, even though we have six box sizes, so it’s very efficient.” This efficient, flexible belly band strategy aligns with Knack’s wider attitude toward packaging. As a premium, bespoke D2C gift service, the packaging issues for Knack have revolved around how to create something that’s appealing, but flexible enough that it can be easily customized in terms of what the gift giver sends to the recipient. “So every bit of this, including the vellum, can be printed by a specific customer,” Jennings says. “And then, that shipper was the last piece that we really needed to think through and make what arrives at people’s doorsteps something special.” ■

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JUNE 2021

5 Emerging Trends in E-commerce Package Design The rise in e-commerce in 2020 forced brands to rethink their package design to connect with consumers outside the retail environment. Here are five design trends that resulted and advice on how to select the style that’s best for your brand. By Shayne Tilley, Contributing Editor

hile e-commerce was already well established before the pandemic, 2020 certainly prompted widescale changes in online shopping behavior that appear permanent. As retailers fought to continue operating after closing their physical stores, we also saw unprecedented e-commerce adoption as both business owners and consumers worked to keep up with this new retail reality. This was brave new territory for many small businesses that, among many other things, now had to consider how they could continue making meaningful connections with their customers in a socially distanced world. Suddenly, the box in the mail became the only chance for brands to have a physical interaction with buyers—and this has had an interesting effect on packaging design! When looking at the design trends shaping e-commerce packaging this year, there is a clear theme. Thanks to the astronomical rise of online shopping, we’ve seen an increasing number of brands turning away from plain or stock packaging. Instead, boxes are now looking like works of art in their own right as brands aim to deliver a little piece of their personality straight to customers’ doorsteps. Let’s take a look at five of these artful trends shaping packaging right now.

1. Solid, all-over color

Probably one of the most simple but effective trends in e-commerce packaging design right now, this style sees products packaged in single, solid colors. Unlike other trends, which make use of intricate illustrations or bold typefaces, it’s the use of bold, bright, and often unconventional shade choices that draw the buyer in. The correct color choices can both create a specific aesthetic for your products as well as give customers subtle clues about the ingredients. For example, Los Angeles-based superfood smoothie maker TUSOL Wellness uses a range of shades directly representing the hero ingredient of each of its individual smoothie sachets, making each flavor easily recognizable.

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1 The color choices are also paired with a shiny, metallic material, giving each sachet a luxurious look and feel. While this trend is a lot more understated, it is an incredibly powerful way to ensure products stand out against the competition.

2. Hyper-simplistic geometry

Another design trend shaping (literally) the packaging world right now is the use of simple yet striking geometric concepts. Here, designs incorporate straight and neat lines and tight angles paired with distinctive colors to make an unforgettable impression on customers. While geometric patterns may look plain at first glance, the superpower of this design style is in its abstract simplicity. Instead of straight up showing or telling customers with illustrations or imagery, these clever geometric elements give them hints of what to expect when they open things up. For example, the grid-like design on

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alternative wellness products. Pairing strong typefaces with clean, bright colors for the product names on its bottle labels, these products can entice older and younger generations alike.

4. Organically shaped color blocking

Undoubtedly one of the most popular design trends right now, this style beautifully merges the shift towards increasingly environmentally conscious consumer sentiment and the overarching art-inspired design trend seen right now in e-commerce. Color blocking as a concept isn’t exactly new. But doing so with softer and more natural colors, shapes, and textures? That’s very 2021. Rather than clear, straight, lined boxes of color, these are collages of unbalanced, unevenly weighted shapes overlaid with freckles, squiggles, and spirals.

2 California’s Sincere Cider uses various elements and colors inspired by apples to evoke the crisp, clean flavors to be found within.

3. Product names front and center

It’s time to let your product names do the talking with the use of striking typography that makes each word feel like a piece of artwork in itself. Rather than placing a logo, brand name, or illustration center stage, the names of the products themselves are now the star of the show. Any additional design elements are simply used to make the name stand out. As this style leaves no doubt as to what the product is called or does, it is the perfect trend for product-focused businesses that are looking to increase brand awareness. Through the use of creative and eye-catching lettering, this design style has the unique ability to give a product a distinctive personality all its own. Unlike most traditional supplement companies, Minnesota’s Crystal Star has leveraged this trend on its simple yet stylish packaging to appeal to customers seeking

Whether abstract or portraying scenes found in nature, these designs are a welcome breath of fresh air for so many of us who spent the majority of the past 12 months cooped up inside. A great example can be found with clean skincare brand ORPHEUS, which uses soft organic shapes and colors on its packaging to create the image of a stunning ethereal landscape that is a nod to the Resurrection Flower found in its products.

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JUNE 2021

5. Picture-perfect symmetry

It’s not uncommon for the top design trends each year to appear contradictory. In fact, it’s almost expected! Not everyone likes the same pizza toppings, so to speak. While some designers and brands are experimenting with imperfect shapes and unusual patterns, we’re also seeing packaging that swings in the complete opposite direction by playing with order and balance. Whether incredibly complex and tight illustrations or looser, more disconnected patterns that leverage negative space, the visually satisfying nature of symmetry elicits a sense of calm, order, and grounding—starkly contrasting the chaos of the last year. A perfect example can be seen on the bold and almost hypnotic symmetrical patterns on the beer cans of Costa Rica’s Numu Brewing.

SEE MORE EXAMPLES AT PWGO.TO/6099.

Now it’s time to get started!

Whether you’re an e-commerce business looking to level up your packaging game this year or a fresh, new brand just starting out, tapping into design trends can be an easy yet effective way to ensure your brand stands out and leaves a lasting impression on customers. But when the design trends all look so incredible, deciding which style is right for your brand can be a bit daunting. In this instance, it can be helpful to ask yourself a series of questions before you start the product packaging design process. • What is the product? Of course, you need to know how big it is, what shape it is, and what it does to inform the logistical side of things. But by breaking it down even further, you can draw out inspiration for the type of design you’re going to use. What ingredients is it made of? Does it have a particular scent or texture? As we saw with the above trends, often the design—whether it’s a pattern, illustration,

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or clever use of colors—is so much more than simply an embellishment. • Who’s buying the product? Your packaging should appeal to your ideal customer, so it’s important that you know who that customer is before designing your packaging. So next you need to ask yourself, who’s your target audience? What do they value and need? Are they old or young? Are they environmentally conscious? Are they on a budget, or do they have a higher disposable income? By homing in on your ideal customer and what’s important to them, you can narrow down your design choices to something that’s truly going to catch their eye. • Who are you as a brand? Finally, ensure you know who you are as a brand. It’s all very well creating stunning packaging, but if it doesn’t mirror your values, purpose, and personality, it’s not going to create a seamless brand experience. This doesn’t mean you can’t experiment with quirky design, but it should fit within the parameters of your overarching brand narrative. Are you playful or serious? Are you luxurious or cost-effective? Energetic or stoic? And most importantly, what do you stand for? The answers to the above questions will help you form a blueprint that will guide every facet of your packaging design—from fronts, logos, copy, and colors right through to the materials and different layers you use. With many consumers realizing that shopping online is beneficial for their daily lives, there’s no doubt that e-commerce looks set to be the norm for many of us. And with the effects this has already had on e-commerce packaging design, it’s likely we can expect to see plenty of beautifully designed packages arriving in our homes for the foreseeable future. ■

I t e i a

Shayne Tilley is Head of Marketing for 99designs, the global creative platform by Vistaprint.

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JUNE 2021

New D2C Cleaning Products: Refillable, Non-Toxic, and Counter-worthy

or consumers looking for more-natural, less-toxic household cleaning products that take into account reduced packaging as well, they’re in luck. In the last couple of years, several companies have launched directto-consumer products that offer reusable containers paired with concentrated detergent refills shipped in eco-friendly packaging. New York City-based Blueland is among them. But co-founder and CEO Sarah Paiji Yoo says she doesn’t mind the competition. “We love that other brands are also encouraging consumers to consider refillable packaging, instead of single-use packaging, to push all of us towards a fundamental change in how we shop and consume,” she shares. Blueland’s mission, the company says, is to reimagine all categories of household packaged goods with innovative form factors and environmentally responsible packaging— starting with cleaning products. With The Clean Essentials kit, which contains three reusable Forever Bottles for cleaners, one Forever Bottle for foaming hand soap, and four tablets of powdered, concentrated detergents for MultiSurface, Glass + Mirror, Bathroom, and Foaming Hand Soap, Blueland hopes to eliminate 100 billion single-use plastic bottles in the U.S. alone. Says Paiji Yoo, “We’ve worked tirelessly to ensure we’re removing common barriers consumers cite about why they

haven’t made the switch. It’s easy for people to refill and reuse our products. The dry tablets are compact, can be purchased in bulk without taking up a ton of space, and all someone has to do is drop the tablet into our reusable bottle to create a new full bottle of cleaner. With that one innovation, we’ve eliminated barriers around ease of use and space among others.” The custom, 20-oz bullet-shaped clear bottles for the three cleaning products are made from Tritan™ BPA-free, shatter-resistant #7 copolyester from Eastman. A splash of color—cyan, magenta, or yellow—inside the base of the bottle differentiates the cleaner type. For its hand soap, Blueland designed a smaller, 9-oz glass bottle, with the same shape and a clear base. “For all our design and product concepts, we looked to ensure functionality and appeal,” explains Paiji Yoo. “This balance can be seen throughout all of our offerings, and customers will also note the usage of a curvature design aesthetic in both the packaging and bottles to mirror our widely recognized tablet iconography.” Sachets for individual cleaning tablets and for 40ct pouches are made from a proprietary, compostable, paper-based material, the development of which was “a true labor of love,” Paiji Yoo says. “Not only did we need it

Subscription D2C Supplement Brand Makes Sustainable Impression at Unboxing

new-to-science fatty acid supplement called Fatty 15 promises to improve longevity. Brand owner Seraphina Therapeutics created a sustainability minded D2C packaging and unboxing experience to align with and amplify the discovery. The initial packaging and distribution strategy for the product is another example of a wave of subscriptionbased kits that deliver a durable, reusable package up front, then periodically mail a lightweight refill pack. Seraphina teamed with L.A.-based creative and brand design agency Phenomenon for graphic design and branding, and Erin Moharita, CPP, principal of boutique packaging agency EKM for structure and sourcing.

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Primary packaging is in the form of a metalized foil pouch—two pouches come in the starter kit and are then mailed as refill packs. While this format isn’t recyclable, it’s necessary to get the intact filled capsules safely to the consumer without breakage or leakage. But once those capsules are safely sealed in the foil packs, non-food-contact secondary packaging afforded the brand a lot more freedom for artistry and latitude for brand positioning. The durable, reusable pack is a beautiful, silk screen-printed glass bottle with sustainable bamboo-based closure. “Considering that the bottle is meant to be used over and over again, to be refilled month after month with

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QUICK HITS

to be compostable and look well-designed, but it also had to be strong enough to hold up in high heat and humidity, and survive machinery that is really made only for plastic packaging during creation.” The shipping box for The Clean Essentials kit, as well as for other kits offering combinations of the base products along with items such as steel tins for tablets and silicone shakers for powder dish soaps, is made from recycled-content, recyclable corrugated material, as is an instruction insert. Commenting on the cost of Blueland’s offerings versus cleaners in single-use packaging, Paiji Yoo says Blueland’s goal was to create products that were affordable and accessible to as many people as possible. Sold on Blueland’s website, refills and kits are priced anywhere from $6 to $83, and are available as a one-time purchase or on a subscription basis. “Typically, eco-friendly options have been priced and viewed as more expensive, so we wanted to ensure our products could allow customers to save money over time,” says Paiji Yoo. “With Blueland, customers don’t have to pay

refill pouches, it was really important that we had very highquality decoration on the bottle. We need it be able to be handled multiple times with no issue, with no deco coming off,” says Moharita. “Printed labels in a bathroom over months can become damaged and not look so nice. We really felt that direct deco to the bottle not only gave it a really nice premium feel, but it just would be a longer-standing product on your shelf that looks nice and clean.” Fatty 15 uses a shipper made from 100% post-consumer recycled kraft corrugated, adding a circular quality to what already was recyclable. Instead of printing directly on corrugated, the Fatty 15 team decided to print a top sheet and laminate it to one side, the inside-facing corrugated wall. The top sheet is also recyclable and is made out of FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified paper. “We didn’t print directly on the kraft since we just felt that the top sheet gave a little bit of a cleaner look. The color was a little more vibrant going down this route, and we just could get better quality. Also, I find that when you print on these top sheets, you’re getting less corrugated ‘dust’ coming from the shipper as it travels through the supply chain. That was really important since we feature a beautifully decorated glass bottle with no carton protecting it,” Moharita says.

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for water and packaging again and again with each bottle of cleaner and can even save more money when they purchase our tablets in bulk or on a subscription to make it even easier for them to switch to an eco-friendly product.” Looking to the future, Blueland hopes to grow into a global company with products across a range of categories, such as personal care, beauty, and possibly even packaged food and beverages. “We imagine there one day being a ‘Blueland home’ that is filled with beautiful reusable containers that are convenient and affordable to refill,” shares Paiji Yoo. “Our goal continues to be to help people reduce the amount of single-use plastic in their everyday lives and help them make changes that will benefit our world.” —Anne Marie Mohan

VIRTUAL TOUR OF AMAZON VIDEO: Dr. Kim Houchens, Director, Amazon Advanced Technology – Customer Packaging Experience, takes you through all the touches your e-commerce package goes through in this virtual tour of Amazon’s fulfillment process. Visit pwgo.to/6015 to watch.

A corrugated kraft insert is used to hold the glass bottle in place, and to orient it toward consumers as they unbox the product. This bottle-holding insert rests on a second corrugated insert, this one seamed and erected to be a 3D, shelf-like structure that forms a collar around the inside bottom of the shipper. This corrugated collar cradles three pouches-worth of capsules, three packs at 30 days each, the amount that arrives with the starter kit. “This box was made completely custom for this project, and [Moharita] and her team engineered it to have the smallest footprint possible,” adds Ali Filsoof, Design Director at Phenomenon. “There is no extra room—there’s only enough room to hold the corrugated inserts, which are holding the bottle and the pouch of capsules underneath, but that’s it. Everything was engineered so it could be handled and shipped across the country and remain intact. The insert that holds the bottle is perfectly laser cut to the bottle’s size, so we didn’t have to put any additional padding on top. We really just have an [instructional pamphlet] insert that sits on top. We went through a couple iterations of this to land here and we’re really proud of it because there’s not an inch of excess of corrugated; it’s precisely what we needed to get this shipped properly.” —Matt Reynolds

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QUICK HITS

JUNE 2021

D2C Proteins’ Thermal Insulation Sits at the Intersection of E-Comm and Sustainability

his e-comm startup hit the big time only a couple of months ago by being purchased by EMERGE Commerce Ltd., an acquirer and operator of niche e-commerce brands. A big step in getting there was bolstering its package sustainability profile to better align with its brand positioning. Headquartered outside of Toronto, truLOCAL was founded in 2016 as a monthly subscription platform for meat and food delivery that’s uniquely tied to independent local farms, butchers, and clean-meat processors. At its core, it’s a platform for a business like an organic farm or a neighborhood butcher shop to go Direct to Consumer (D2C)—something particularly valuable when the pandemic had consumers nervous about stepping inside a supermarket. “There was nobody in the online meat business borrowing best practices from e-comm, SaaS [Software as a Service], and online real estate,” says Marc LaFleur, CEO and co-founder. “With e-comm, you’re looking at things like paid customer acquisition. And you look at SaaS, you learn about user onboarding and customer retention. Even highly

applicable lead-generation practices can be learned through real estate. No one was really doing that. So we figured, why not take these proven business models and apply them to a niche market like online meat? We quickly realized we were solving a problem on the supplier side, too. The producers of these meats didn’t know where to sell their product. We’re trying to be the best company at connecting buyers to a source, and that should benefit both the consumer and the supplier.”

Packaging transformation

As attractive as e-comm and D2C might be, consumers see them as sources of excess packaging waste. Leadership at truLOCAL had to address that perception. As a cold-chain shipper of perishable meat, the company initially was using unrecyclable expanded polystyrene (EPS) for thermal protection during transit. Customers indicated that they didn’t like that the containers couldn’t be recycled; it defeated one of the purposes of shopping local to begin with.

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QUICK HITS

JUNE 2021 So truLOCAL set out to replace the coolers with a sustainable alternative that still protects shipments and maintains freshness. After all, the founders always wanted to be a business that did good, something accomplished by connecting consumers to these more boutique and niche producers by delivering value-added meat products. “But our packaging wasn’t lining up with that,” LaFleur says. “So that’s where we started realizing that we need to make a change.” Following an in-depth internal analysis of a multitude of different cooler and insulation solutions, truLOCAL chose Ranpak WrapPak Protector, a paper-based thermal insulation solution for use with dry ice or gel packs. “Protector crosspads have been transformative products for us,” says Lafleur. “Their flexibility and performance made it an easy choice to replace our unsustainable, bulky Styrofoam coolers.” The Ranpak system includes the semi-automatic WrapPak Protector. This rollstock-fed Kraft paper converting system creates waved paper pads at programmable sizes and increments. For fulfillment centers interested in box lining, the wide paper pads produced on the system can cover an entire box surface with just one insert. Wrapping, blockingand-bracing, and interleaving are possible with the pads, and with a double layer as is used in the truLOCAL application, the air trapped in the waved Kraft paper provides sufficient thermal insulation for dry ice for 48 hours. According to Ranpak, the features listed above mean the WrapPak Protector unit can replace a wide range of existing packaging materials that truLOCAL used to require, including corrugated shippers, dunnage, aluminum-coated plastics, tapes, and inserts. The WrapPak Protector converter is also highly programmable to match evolving needs, and it’s small enough to use at a pack table, either in-line or as a standalone unit. The small piece of machinery was easily integrated into truLOCAL’s facility as it freed up nearly 50 sq m (520 sq ft) of space, previously dedicated to EPS packout, for more pack

lines. But not only did Ranpak help with the storage space, it also made the packaging process easier and reduced the time needed to package boxes thanks to the on-demand delivery of the pads. The response from customers has been equally positive, according to LaFleur. Social media posts feature customers embracing the experience of opening their truLOCAL boxes to enjoy their products wrapped beautifully and safely in Ranpak Protector pads. Consumers appreciate that the allpaper replacement solution is 100% curbside recyclable. “People understand paper,” he adds. “Not only did Ranpak improve the unboxing experience for our customers, but we now spend less time packing our boxes. The ondemand delivery of the pads from the Protector makes the process so quick and easy. The simplicity of the paper is beautiful.” —Matt Reynolds

Watch or Read: Fine, Fragile Wineglasses in the E-Comm Channel?

ineglasses in the e-comm channel might sound tricky, but it can be done with great results. The tableware brand Lenox’s new red wine stemware package for Amazon comprises two inserts holding six glasses, covered with a paperboard sleeve, and shipped in a corrugated case. Watch a brief video, by Fuseneo’s Brent Lindberg, outlining the project at pwgo.to/6014. Read Anne Marie Mohan’s in-depth article on the project with Lenox, Fuseneo, and Amazon, from the March issue of Packaging World, at pwgo.to/7021.

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