More packaging is arriving on doorsteps across the nation with extended lockdowns and parcel volumes hitting heights not seen since Christmas last year. In response, Australia Post is set to boost jobs and weekend deliveries.
More than 9 million Australians shopped online in the past financial year, with Australia Post’s 2021 Inside Online Shopping eCommerce report revealing almost 32 per cent growth year-on-year to June 2021.
Not surprisingly, Home & Garden and Food & Liquor categories are scoring above the national average, with pet products, baby products and homewares and appliances growing over 46%.
In a more recent monthly update (Inside Australian Online Shopping eCommerce update July 2021), a closer look at the state-by-state figures revealed that Victoria, during lockdown 4.0, recorded 38% YOY increase in online purchases, while nationally purchases grew 10.4% YOY in the same fortnight (30 May to 12 June).
The lockdown in Sydney and then all of NSW caused a spike in online purchases with national growth up 10.5% YOY. During this three-week period (27 June to 17 July 2021 inclusive) online shopping in NSW grew 36% YOY.
To service the surge, AusPost has already opened pop-up sites to help with processing and is set to recruit more than 4000 new team members nationally, with 3500 additional delivery roles, including 350 in regional areas, which includes more than 1000 drivers and 2100 staff to help sort parcels, as well as many new customer support roles based in Victoria and Queensland.
Australia Post has confirmed that weekend deliveries will remain in place from now until the end of the year, with up to half a million parcels delivered each and every weekend from now until Christmas.
What does this mean for packaging?
More shopping equals more packaging entering households, but the heightened awareness of environmental awareness among consumers has pushed suppliers to consider the sustainability credentials of the packaging they’re sending their parcels in.
According to Tim Woods, MD of Australia’s leading fibre packaging market analysis and consulting firm IndustryEdge, fibre-based packaging is riding the e-commerce wave.
Products in demand include corrugated boxes that are available in smaller sizes, small cartons and especially fibre-based pouches, envelopes, parcels and sleeves – some also padded using shredded fibre.
Woods says consumption of these products, many of which are imported, more than doubled at the onset of the pandemic. Demand remained at record highs long after most other packaging materials returned to relatively normal consumption patterns in early 2021.
“Year-ended June, their consumption was up an eye watering 73%, feeding into almost 13% growth in total imported finished fibre-packaging demand over the year,” he said.
For plastic sleeves and mailers, there’s a growing shift to recyclable and compostable solutions.
AusPost, in 2019, launched a shipping satchel made from 80 per cent recycled plastic to reduce its reliance on virgin plastic.
Sendle, a carbon-neutral BCorp shipping company, is at pains to guide its customers to towards making the right sustainable packaging choices, and has partnered with two companies, No Issue and Better Packaging Co, that supply compostable mailers for their customers.
Speaking on the PKN Podcast recently, Sendle chief marketing and customer officer Eva Ross, said 64% of Sendle customers say they are more likely to make a purchase from a company supplying compostable packaging, and that 57% are frustrated with the amount of packaging they must deal with after their parcel arrives.
Ross says the e-commerce surge triggered by the pandemic is unlikely to wane post-Covid, as consumers have now established new buying pattens.
As is already evident, suppliers of e-commerce packaging will respond to this shift, with growth in sustainable packaging solutions that are recyclable, or compostable, or re-usable.
