In the last few years, the packaging market is regaining its momentum and is rapidly evolving. Apart from this, it’s also driven by factors such as rise in demand for green products, growth in retail volumes, increase in purchasing power of customers, and processes in manufacturing. Today, every individual across the world thinks of purchasing products online than visiting a store. Besides e-commerce, the growth of the packaging market also depends on several other application industries like healthcare, food, and consumer goods. There are new packaging trends emerging in these sectors too. Moreover, the packaging market also depends on the varying requirements of the customers. Innovative products are brought into the market to meet these ever-evolving demands. The rising initiatives undertaken by manufacturers to reduce the ecological footprint have led to the adoption of packaging recycling and the concept of “green packaging”. All these challenges, quantitative, and qualitative assessments, drivers, competitive dynamics of the market, geographical analysis are key for laying out strategies. In this article, we have listed a few packaging trends to consider for this year.

Packaging trends to consider

A) Corrugated Packaging

As online shopping grows rapidly, e-commerce packaging has become more important within the packaging industry. The rapid packaging, such as corrugated packaging will take over the sector with its sustainable qualities and stable structure. For the leading brands, the focus on sustainability and plastic replacement is increasingly at the forefront of packaging strategy. Replacing the single-use plastic with widely recycled material such as corrugated will go a long way to meet the recycling targets and reduce the amount of waste produced. Besides, innovations such as reusable printed sleeves that assemble over multiple-use corrugated boxes will help ensure brands can meet consumer demands for sustainable and more environmentally friendly packaging solutions. The luxury packaging market will also continue to further enter into the e-commerce market.

B) Smart packaging

With cloud labeling, augmented reality (AR), track-and-trace tech, anti-counterfeiting packs, the smart packaging will trend in 2020 as consumers would hold businesses to a higher standard of environmental consciousness. While maintaining user engagement and brand impact, AR-enabled packaging with its unlimited scalability has the ability to educate customers on environmental impact and allow businesses to encourage an eco-friendly approach. When it comes to imparting information about a brand’s purpose, sustainability, and provenance, AR and connected packaging are being used not only for immersive storytelling both to delight and surprise users but also to crucially, inform, and instruct them. With the introduction of 5G in 2020, AR packaging is a savvy move for businesses, making the use of the camera and AR greater, making the speed and power of devices. With the digitizing of processes and the advent of cloud and software-as-a-service offerings, there are a few barriers to entry for smaller organizations as less investment and hardware and needed.

C) 100% recyclable materials

The major trend this year would be sustainability. One of the major aspects this trend would focus on will be companies making packaging from 100% recyclable materials. As consumer concern about plastic grows and new technologies change, businesses need to start thinking out of the box. The demand for recyclable materials in packaging and materials that are actually recycled will grow and become higher than ever in 2020. The common plastics may soon be replaced by natural materials and help brands strengthen their environmentally-friendly credentials.

D) Minimalism

Aesthetics will play an important part to the packaging sector, and for 2020 packaging design will continue to be simple with decorate features. Besides, for luxury packaging digital print will also become more popular. The packaging aesthetics will play a vital role in catching the consumer’s eye in 2020. Many brands will be investing in updating their primary packaging such as caps and enclosures, glass and plastic bottles with decorative techniques such as hot stamping, etching, screen printing, metallization, and anodizing helping to interpret brand identity directly onto the product. Simplistic designs and clean packaging will be a trend for 2020. As consumers believe less complex packaging is more environmentally friendly than over-engineered packaging, focusing on product ingredients ties in with the sustainability trend.

E) Edible Packaging

Over the past few years, edible packaging has slowly gained traction and with new innovations it‘s expected to continue to develop further for 2020. The next big thing is going to be packaging that focuses on being biodegradable; even edible and the rising tide of edible packaging is inevitable. Edible packaging is a brave new approach to packaging, one that embarks upon the ever-growing problem of plastic pollution and rising demand for recyclable packaging.

F) Vintage Packaging

We would be seeing more modern designs based on vintage aesthetics and colors in the world of packaging. Color tones, typography, branding, messaging, and related dynamics will create their best impressions on consumers both young and old. Vintage packaging possesses an air of quality, beauty, respect and fashion that many modern types of packaging have left behind for sustainability concerns and cost reduction. Unlike luxury packaging, the vintage packaging niche market will need to tread carefully when it comes to sustainability. Moreover, vintage packaging must find a way to straddle the barrier between dynamics and sustainability it required to fulfill the experience expected by the consumer.

G) e-commerce Packaging

As we all are aware of the fact that the world of packaging posses some interesting challenges to both consumers and companies. One must ensure that their packaging is both strong and protective of the products inside while simultaneously speaking of a dedication to environmental issues and sustainability. It’s quite obvious that every company in the e-com business will try to balance this act. The businesses engaged in selling through e-commerce websites need to be able to find a balance between proper packaging and protecting their products without using an excess of materials as many customers often express distaste for excessive packaging and the environmental concerns that come with it. The world is growing ever more conscious about pollution and waste and these concerns are also at the forefront of e-com packaging.