One of our favorite blogs is Sustainable Is Good because they do an exceptional job of exposing examples of over packaging. This photo ran on SISG a couple of months ago, much to the embarrassment of Amazon. Obviously someone at Amazon made a mistake and shipped out an order for ten thin books, in ten separate boxes complete with tape and void fill. That was a plain and simple error on someone’s part and I am sure “inspector #25” or “packer #17” heard about their lapse in common sense. As bad as mistakes like that can be for the companies making them, what is even worse is deliberate lapses in basic concern regarding the importance of secondary packaging, especially when it is done by companies that should know better.

I believe that now more than ever, a green company making a green product MUST be consistent throughout their entire customer serving process, including the secondary packaging they ship out. Here are some reasons why.

• Your secondary packaging is the very first tangible contact you have with your customer. They see your secondary packaging before they see your product. As the old adage says, “You only have one chance to make a good first impression”.
• The green marketplace is getting more crowded every day. Very few of us have an exclusive or unique product to offer so your customers have more options than ever before. Will eco-consistency be the tie breaker between you and your fast growing competitor?
• Cost is no longer a good excuse to not green up your secondary packaging. You now have viable and cost efficient options in almost every secondary packaging product category including boxes, void fill, tape and even labels.
• The green minded consumer tends to be skeptical and will scrutinize most everything about the people they do business with. What does your packaging say about your long terms commitment to protecting the environment?

In addition, during these difficult economic times, if we are asking our green minded customer to NOT make compromises, we have to do the same. We can only do that if we communicate a clear, concise and consistent eco message from beginning to end.