As sustainability becomes a more and more pressing matter, consumers are becoming more willing to pay more for products that take sustainability and the environment into the account. Whilst almost 50% of consumers are now willing to pay more for a sustainable item, 70% of online customers expect eCommerce businesses and brands to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Many factors come into the purchase decision for the customer, and sustainability has become to have more and more weight on this decision than ever before. This is due to consumers becoming increasingly aware of their environmental impact they are creating from the type of products they buy.
Governments have been increasing environmental policies and legislation, such as banning certain one-use plastics and increasing taxation on others, and a lot of large companies are too making the switch to become more sustainable to give their products an edge over competitors.
Ways To Make Your eCommerce Business More Sustainable
Sustainable Packaging
One of the main problems eCommerce businesses face when trying to choose the correct packaging is juggling the balance between having quality, solid, and aesthetically pleasing packing whilst still being sustainable and on top of that keeping the costs of it low to keep their product competitive and maintain decent profit margins. However, this can still be done through using cheaper recycled materials for packaging which can tick consumers sustainability criteria, whilst still keeping costs fairly low.
Deliver with electric and hybrid vehicles
The rapid growth of eCommerce, which was further fuelled by covid, has obviously led to increased volumes in postage and the couriering of products. This has led to the vast increase of delivery vehicles in service. However, the majority of the main couriers like Royal Mail, DPD and Evri are already implemented and are utilising the use of electric or hybrid delivery vehicles, and try and optimise their delivery routes to limit their pollution and overall environmental impact, all which are courier partners of UK Fulfilment.
Royal Mail
DPD
Energy Optimisation
The has been a steady increase in the cost of energy over the past few years, and this year seen rapid increases to the costs of energy bills, due to demand during the post Covid reopening of economies, along with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which put more pressure on the gas supplies to Europe and the UK, which has added to high inflation of around 10%. This has impacted not only consumers but businesses as well, which has led to the increase of eCommerce businesses committing to renewable energy sources.
Ecommerce businesses can help optimise their energy usuage a number of ways, such as installing solar panels in logitistics centres to reduce not only their energy costs but also their carbon footprint.
Reduced use of one-use Plastics & Paper
The eCommerce market can be very un-environmentally friendly, and can result in a vast amount of wasted cardboard, paper and plastics. As sustainability and the environment becomes an ever more pressing matter, it is key that eCommerce businesses not only move towards and use recycled and eco-friendly packaging, but also try and reduce the use of unnecessary paper and cardboard for each order. This could not only make your company more sustainable, but may also save on costs as packaging is reduced. This approach can also be used for daily operations of a business, through minimising the use of unnecessary materials. For instance UK Fulfilment, process an order though a scanning system which not only reduced paper, but also achieves a 99.93% picking accuracy rate.
If your eCommerce business is either looking for or in need of sustainable fulfilment, and would like a free quote from UK Fulfilment; you can can click here.
