According to the market research firm The Freedonia Group, protective packaging demand in the US is projected to increase 4.5 percent per year to $6.4 billion in 2018, an improvement from the 2008-2013 performance based on a strengthening of the economy, including recoveries in the manufacturing and construction segments, which were hit hard during the 2007-2009 recession.
According to analyst Esther Palevsky, “Continued robust growth is also expected for Internet shopping, buoyed by the convenience of mobile access to retailer websites along with an improved outlook for consumer spending.” These factors will necessitate heightened requirements for cost-effective packaging used in the protection of goods from shock, vibration, abrasion, and other damaging effects of shipping and handling. These and other trends are presented in Protective Packaging, a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc.
The fulfillment of e-commerce sales will be the most significant driver of growth for protective packaging, supporting healthy gains for products such as protective mailers, air pillows, and bubble packaging.
In addition to an upswing in manufacturing output, protective packaging demand growth in the manufacturing market will be aided by the shifting of some basic manufacturing operations back to the US, a reversal of the outsourcing trend of recent decades that has limited domestic manufacturing gains. These factors will bode well for related protective packaging, especially plastic foam, molded pulp, and paperboard protectors.
