How to Reduce the Unseen Costs of Packaging Waste?

Branding is incomplete without packaging and it can be a major source of waste when overdone, often leading to heavy losses. Packaging waste can be in the form of poor recyclability, damaged materials and oversized boxes.

Nowadays, brands increasingly finding more sustainable packaging solutions. By understanding where waste happens and how to prevent it is key to building a responsible packaging system.

In this blog post, we are going to share how to minimize hidden costs of packaging waste. Keep reading!

How to Reduce the Unseen Costs of Packaging Waste?

Other than sustainability, packaging waste has various business impacts like high material & printing costs, damage of brand reputation, and product loss/ returns. Reducing waste is not only good for planet but also help you improve your business operations wisely.

Here are 5 ways to reduce the hidden costs associated with packaging waste.

1. Excessive Materials

While premium packaging can be used to make product packaging stylish & attractive but using excessive materials can have the negative impact on brand reputation. Not only can it generate higher packaging material costs but also loose customer trust.

You need to consider:

• Right sizing your packaging by following the structural design.
• Go for minimalist designs to reduce costs and impress eco-conscious customers.
• Prefer mono-material designs.

2. Over-ordering

Most of the times, over-ordering includes those inventory that never gets used. As a result, these materials degrade and fade over long periods, resulting in huge loss in cash flow that is not invested into the business for effective return on investment.

You need to consider:

• Keep 3-6 months inventory, not more than this. You can easily get an idea through forecasting based on real estimations
• Use flexible designs that don’t gets too old with time.
• Go for supplier that comes with low MOQs like Kolaxo Print.

3. Storage Damage

Custom packaging boxes can be vulnerable to temperature changes and moisture. This thing comes with structural and visual damage to the packaging. This kind of damage often gets unnoticed until customer receives damaged boxes at their doorstep.

What you Should Do?

• Store packaging properly in dry places where temperature is adequate for storage purposes.
• Prefer flat-packed packaging to organize and safe in a better way.
• Make sure old packaging gets used first.

4. End-of-Life Waste

Even by using sustainable packaging materials, your efforts for eco-friendly packaging might waste if customers don’t click an idea how to dispose of them. Lack of disposable instructions on packaging can lead to serious consequences that harm the planet.

Try to:

• Include clear disposal instructions on packaging.
• Choose materials that are easy to recycle or reused.
• Keep materials simple and do not use excessive materials like plastics with metallic fonts.

5. Overcustomized Designs

Excessive customization is not good all the times. If you manufacture high-quality packaging for every product variant, campaign or SKU, you are increasing the chances of overproduction. If you stop selling a product due to any reason, all the remaining packaging would get wasted.

To avoid it, Consider:

• Design your brand packaging flexibly for future use.
• Avoid printing variable data. Instead using stickers or labels so you won’t face issues in the future.
• Try to use universal packaging formats that can be used for different product lines.

Bottom Line!

How to reduce the unseen costs of packaging waste? Packaging waste is not a good thing in different aspects. Not only it ruins customer experience but also impacts brand reputation in the packaging industry. By designing smarter, storing better and thinking more holistically about lifecycle can reduce waste.

Start by doing some things:

• Track how much packaging is overstocked and damaged.
• Reviewing customer feedback to get user feedback on excessive packaging.