Corrugated board or reusable? This is how consumers rate packaging solutions in the mail-order business

Shipping packaging made of corrugated board is the favourite among consumers, while reusable offers in e-commerce will remain a niche in the medium term. This is the assessment of the IFH Cologne in a recent study commissioned by the Verband der Wellpappen-Industrie e. V. (VDW). In particular, consumers with a pronounced environmental awareness were not convinced by reusable concepts.

According to the IFH survey, 91 percent of the participants perceive packaging made of cardboard, corrugated board or carton as more natural compared to plastic packaging. 89 percent said they prefer recyclable product packaging. When asked which packaging solution they would choose when ordering online, 55 percent of consumers named corrugated cardboard and only 22 percent reusable. Reusable packaging was also not convincing in the majority of questions focussing on environmental aspects: only 19 per cent think that reusable is the more sustainable solution, whereas 48 per cent see corrugated board as having the advantage here. 40 per cent confirmed that corrugated board packaging is made of an environmentally friendly material; only 26 per cent confirmed this for reusable packaging. Especially in the question of problem-free disposal, solutions made of corrugated board (58 per cent) prevailed over reusable (16 per cent). "For us, the results confirm the high level of acceptance that corrugated board packaging enjoys among the population", explains VDW Executive Director Dr. Oliver Wolfrum. "The responses show consumer appreciation for the natural raw material base of the material and strong support for a well-functioning recycling cycle, to which we can all contribute with the smallest effort. Here, the desire for sustainability and the need for convenience are successfully combined."

In the course of the survey, the IFH also divided consumers into three sustainability types using upstream questions: the environmentally conscious (35 percent of respondents), who pay attention to sustainability when shopping and also spend more on it; the pragmatists (nine percent), who show little or no willingness to pay for more sustainable products; and respondents with a medium awareness of sustainability issues (56 percent). "We found the group of the environmentally conscious particularly interesting," emphasises Wolfrum. "This group of people actively deals with ecological issues and is younger on average - we therefore also understand the preferences of these respondents as a forward-looking signal." It is precisely this comparatively well-informed group, which is also aware of additional transport routes and costly cleaning processes for reusable packaging, that rated corrugated board more positively than the rest of the respondents and is more sceptical about reusable packaging, says Wolfrum. Overall, 55 per cent of the environmentally conscious rated the concept of reusable packaging only as mediocre or even poor.