One of the major business impacts of the COVID19 pandemic of this year has undoubtedly been the advance of ecommerce. While online shopping had been growing steadily for years, it of course accelerated hugely while physical shops were closed and people were confined to their homes.
Ecommerce already accounted for over 14% of retail purchases coming into 2020, which was predicted to rise to 23% by 2023. However, David McRedmond, CEO of An Post, has stated in recent interviews that, as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, An Post has already seen an acceleration in parcel growth to the levels that had been projected for two years’ time. Some sources predict that up to 95% of all retail purchases will be conducted via ecommerce by 2040.
Postal tubes for ecommerce
We are proud to be a supplier of robust, Irish-made postal packaging, in the form of our sustainable cardboard tubes.
They have always been the go-to packaging option for delicate and important paper items, such as posters, paintings and certificates. But now we are seeing them being used for lots of other products, which are perhaps being dispatched by post more commonly than before. These include clothing and gifts in shorter, wider format tubes.
But in their longer formats cardboard tubes also provide fantastic protection to anything long and breakable in transit, for example, umbrellas, tools, engineering parts, blinds…
As a result, we’ve had the pleasure of learning about some new industries this year.
Cardboard tube packaging for fishing rods!
One of our new customers, for example, introduced us to the fishing and angling industry. Fishing Tackle and Bait Ltd has seen their online business increase significantly as a result of the pandemic and associated staycations. They needed a cost-effective mail order solution that would protect the fishing rods in transit.
« Since we started using Industrial Packaging’s cardboard tubes, we’ve had zero issues with the delivery of our fishing rods and equipment. They have helped us with the dispatch of rods of up to 2 metres long. Customers love them as they guarantee no breakage and can be used as a protective case for storing the rods, » says David Burleigh.
We’ve enjoyed dealing with these new challenges. And we’ve learned that fishing is a big business! According to Failte Ireland, over 200,000 Irish people go angling each year, and a further about 150,000 people come to Ireland from overseas on holidays which include angling.
We look forward to discovering many other new uses for our cardboard tubes and indeed, being challenged to customise them for products we may never have worked with before.
Don’t hesitate to call us if you would like to explore the possibility of switching to cardboard tube packages to protect your mail order products.