Online Retailers Face Cardboard Shortage

Online retail is already suffering from significantly rising costs for cardboard boxes

What happens if gas supplies continue to decline over the course of the year and there are supply restrictions or even a standstill in the paper industry? The German E-Commerce and Mail Order Association (bevh) asked itself this question and conducted a survey of the supply situation for cardboard boxes among its members.

The result: online retail is already suffering from significantly rising costs for cardboard boxes, according to bevh. According to the survey, for 93.8 percent of companies, the prices for cardboard boxes had “significantly increased” in the past 12 months, while for a further 6.2 percent the increase was “moderate”. Not a single company said purchase prices had stayed the same or fallen. Asked whether further price increases for the coming 12 months had already been announced to retailers by suppliers, 70.8 percent answered “yes,” while only 14.6 percent were able to answer the question in the negative.

As a result, inventories are shrinking, according to bevh. Only 18.8 percent of the companies surveyed said they either had enough cardboard boxes in stock for the next 12 months (14.6 percent) or did not expect a shortage of cardboard boxes in view of low order volumes (4.2 percent). The majority of retailers see themselves as being undersupplied: 52.1 percent of the companies surveyed are under pressure to buy cardboard boxes at higher prices. Another 22.9 percent cannot afford even that and are already working on alternative packaging.

packaging-360.com