Corrugated Packaging Is Growing at a Frantic Pace — How Will It Transform in the Future?

If we talk about the largest packaging market, it is without doubt corrugated packaging. Especially in e-commerce, corrugated packaging is growing at a frantic pace and is expected to grow by nearly 14% from now to 2027.

A brief introduction to corrugated cartons

Corrugated board is made into corrugated cartons through die-cutting, creasing, stitching or gluing. Corrugated cartons are the most widely used packaging products, and their consumption has always ranked first among all kinds of packaging products, including calcium-plastic corrugated cartons. For more than half a century, corrugated cartons have gradually replaced wooden boxes and other transport packaging containers with their superior performance in use and good processing properties, becoming the main force in transport packaging. In addition to protecting goods and facilitating storage and transportation, they also serve to beautify and promote the goods.

Corrugated cartons are green and environmentally friendly products. They are environmentally friendly, easy to handle and transport, and also feature lightweight design, recyclability and easy degradation. Corrugated packaging machinery and equipment include: high-speed wide-width corrugated board production lines, smart water-based printing, digital printing, and full-scenario smart engineering solutions.

The development history of corrugated packaging can be summarized into four stages. After the national packaging industry management body was established in 1980, the number of corrugated packaging enterprises gradually increased, and the industry entered its initial stage; in the 1990s, as the number of enterprises gradually grew, each enterprise relied on its own unique advantages to continuously seize market share, and the corrugated packaging industry entered a stage of wild growth; at the beginning of the 21st century, enterprises began to pay more attention to management and business models, competition among enterprises became more intense and complex, and the industry entered a stage of rapid growth; after 2011, enterprises with backward production capacity were eliminated from the market, leading enterprises began to explore new development directions and expand their leading advantages and market share, industry concentration was further improved, and the industry entered a stage of steady development.

In recent years, various new types of corrugated cartons and new corrugated board structural components have continuously emerged. The traditional applications of corrugated board are mainly cartons and boxes. However, as a deeper development of corrugated board applications in the packaging industry, new corrugated cartons will bring immeasurable development opportunities to the corrugated carton industry. For carton enterprises, as flute profiles become progressively finer, the market becomes progressively wider.

Consumption upgrading: corrugated carton products move toward the mid-to-high-end segment

Under the trend of consumption upgrading, carton products are gradually developing toward the mid-to-high-end segment, moving from "simple packaging" to "consumer packaging".

This is mainly reflected in:

a) Rising demand for outer packaging support: low-grammage, high-strength and lightweight corrugated board has become a common requirement;

b) Rising requirements for packaging printing: in addition to functional roles such as storage and transportation, protection, moisture resistance and compression resistance, demand is rising for the value-added roles of corrugated cartons in product display, brand reinforcement and consumer guidance.

Model shift: corrugated carton enterprises transform from manufacturers to packaging solution providers

At present: most corrugated carton enterprises in China are "producers", responsible only for the processing and production of design schemes, with small profit margins.

Future transformation into packaging solution providers: the services of a packaging solution provider are reflected in providing customers with comprehensive services across all links, from packaging design, customization, production and distribution to after-sales. Starting with providing packaging appearance and style design for customers, it shortens the design cycle of customer products, customizes the optimal and most economical overall solution suitable for their products, provides follow-up production and distribution services according to customer orders, and maintains close contact with customers after sales, providing corresponding services at any time based on their feedback. International packaging giants such as International Paper and WestRock have long since transformed from manufacturers of packaging products into packaging solution providers. Leading enterprises in China's corrugated carton industry are also moving toward this model.

Smart manufacturing: building "Internet + packaging" intelligence and platformization

In the future, high-quality packaging enterprises in the industry will, by integrating internal and external resources, establish production, logistics and information platforms, integrate the entire process of customer packaging products from circulation and storage through to production support, and comprehensively and one-stop solve for customers all packaging material issues required at each link, reducing customers' overall packaging and logistics costs, adding profit growth points, and establishing long-term mutually trusting relationships with customers.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379406.html