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Ranpak Holdings has seen its shares plunge 18% in the past four weeks. The Ohio-based company is the leader in protective paper packaging, a fast-growing, environmentally friendly alternative to bubble wrap. With a market value of $2.8 billion, Ranpak business carries three big trends: sustainability, e-commerce, and automation.
Its main business is specialized paper wrapping and cushioning for shipments, or what it calls “in-the-box paper-based technologies and products.” The market for protective packaging is $8 billion. Today, bubble wrap, foam, and bags filled with air account for fully $7 billion of the market.
There is a real problem with plastic pollution. Only a fraction of the roughly 400 million tons of plastic produced each year gets recycled. Paper, by contrast, is biodegradable, and most of the paper used by Ranpak gets recycled six to eight times.
The U.S. parcel market is headed to 134 million packages a day by 2026, up 70% from 2020, according to FedEx. Just about anything that is shipped—from wine glasses to car parts—requires protective packaging.

As demand for plastics has grown, so has concern over the waste. More than 90% of plastics generated in the U.S. each year winds up in landfills or incinerators, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Only about 9% is recycled. Plastics that have the potential to be recycled are stamped with a triangle made of three arrows enclosing a resin-identification code—a digit from 1 to 7 that indicates the type of plastic—but the presence of the emblem doesn’t guarantee the waste will be reused, even if it makes it into a recycling bin.
Recycled aluminum has a 100% yield. Cardboard can be recycled seven or eight times. Plastic has a yield loss of about 20%. If I sell you 100 tons of plastics, you’re going to be able to capture and use 80 tons.

Parcel shipping is a booming business, relying on e-commerce shoppers for increased volume and revenues. While the coronavirus pandemic brought about another boost for global parcel volumes, figures by mailing services company Pitney Bowes suggest growth in the sector already followed a steep trajectory previously.

A good unboxing experience can give your business free marketing. Unboxing videos are videos of people opening products and providing a real-world view. In an unboxing video, the product is stripped down to an experience more in line with reality. Customers get a real sense of your product without actually having to buy it. Lots of customers said that watching online unboxing videos had helped them choose a specific product or brand.

Packaging can be a neglected aspect, if not an idle afterthought, of product development. Now the vast majority of people say the design and materials used to package a product influence their buying decisions. Of particular concern is excessive packaging—the kind that makes you feel like a one-person climate menace toting all the leftover cardboard, plastic and Styrofoam to the trash.
It’s a balancing act. People want less packaging, and yet they want the product to arrive in good condition. They want packages that are practical and sustainable but also spark joy. They want a package that informs (ingredients, directions, use-by date), but they also don’t want to be overwhelmed with verbiage.