If you are an online retailer or customer of one, you have surely noticed the volumes of waste produced to safely and efficiently deliver your purchases.  From the boxes within oversized boxes to the protective plastic or foam, far more waste is produced in the effort compared to a trip to the local retail location to make an in-person purchase.

For anyone that is concerned about the environment, this presents a dilemma. If you are a retailer, you need to get your goods to your customers as environmentally friendly and cost-effectively as possible.  For those that are operating eco-friendly brands, this is imperative. And likewise, for those making purchases, this weighs heavily on you as well, particularly while making a purchase from one of these eco-friendly brands.

So how do we avoid this obvious contradiction while taking positive steps toward our own sustainability or that of our customers while not jeopardizing the transaction in the process?  This is where sustainable and reusable packaging enters the equation.

The three major obstacles with reusable packaging are longevity, comparable cost, and material selection.  The first of these, longevity, is in great measure a product of the material selection and these factors also limit themselves and narrow the options.  The more reusable packaging is thicker and more expensive, in the manufacture and inter use processing.  The comparable cost is mostly a factor of material and reverse logistics, returning the packaging for reuse.  These three competing factors have made this an unrealistic challenge to most retailers.

But if you put a few unique variables together in the right way you happen upon a viable solution, one that is can satisfy the longevity, cost, and material concerns of not only the eco-friendly consumer or business but for all online retailers and customers.

By choosing used billboards and upcycling this material into sturdy, reusable mailers we are able to address the material and longevity concerns while diverting waste from the landfill.  Through design, we are able to size mailers to economically manage the reverse logistics variable.

Resendme had taken these elements and designed a circular e-commerce shipping solution and offer this to all sizes of online retailers as a service, making the process of using sustainable packaging as easy as any existing process but a lot more interesting.  On top of this, we have added the ability to track each mailer over time, engaging consumers with the life of their reusable mailers and helping to promote awareness and adoption of sustainable e-commerce shipping.