How to Build a Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Ecommerce Business
Different brands and businesses are beginning to mold themselves into more sustainable and eco-friendly entities. eCommerce platforms are no different. They too are joining this revolution of sorts, and it is all for good reason.
People want today’s businesses to be more responsible towards the environment. They want these companies to ditch traditional practices that were threatening Mother Nature and opt for greener and more eco-friendly solutions.
Ensuring sustainable business practices in the eCommerce industry might seem difficult, but it gets easier once you get started. And right now, the sooner you implement sustainable practices, the better it is for your brand or business. So to get you started, here are a few things to remember while building a sustainable and eco-friendly eCommerce business.
Start with the Products
Your journey towards a sustainable eCommerce business needs to start with the products that you deliver. Because what is the point of branding yourself as an eco-friendly business if the products you sell have not been manufactured in an eco-friendly way?
It is also possible that you are simply providing delivery service for other products, and not manufacturing your own. In this case, you can at least sell only those products that have been manufactured in an eco-friendly manner, or with reduced carbon emissions.
It is difficult to establish yourself as an eco-friendly eCommerce business if you cannot get these things right. Your customers will not hesitate to point these things out to you publicly. As a result, you will likely end up losing credibility. So it is better to be safe, and maintain eco-friendliness from the ground up.
Ensure Sustainable Storage Facilities
For you to be able to deliver all your orders on time, you will first have to make sure that you have enough of those products in stock. And at the same time, you will need a storage facility to keep those products safe, and accessible to your delivery team as necessary. For that, you can get in touch with any storage company that offers both short and long-term storage facilities.
However, since you are aiming for an eco-friendly eCommerce business, the storage facilities you are using need to line up with that aim of yours. For that, you will need to look into sustainable storage solutions for your business. The company you use should not only be good at storage, and logistics, but it should also have a reputation for implementing eco-friendly methods. From the way they store the products to the resources they use to do so, everything has to be eco-friendly in one way or another.
Reduce the Amount of Packaging
Your customers will be expecting you to ensure eco-friendly packaging if you promote yourself as a sustainable eCommerce business. So when they see excess plastic packaging (or any sort of plastic packaging for that matter) with their ordered products, they will be infuriated. And your attempt at establishing yourself as an eco-friendly business will fail miserably.
Many businesses, despite promising an environment-friendly delivery solution, make the mistake of using too much plastic or bubble wrapping with their products. You must avoid going down the same path. Keep the use of plastic packaging to a bare minimum if you must use it. Otherwise, opt for sustainable packaging methods like mushroom roots, biodegradable plastic, etc.
Plastic is perhaps the biggest enemy of our environment. It has made life miserable for different aquatic as well as land-based lifeforms. Hence, since you are aiming for sustainability, you cannot get yourself or your business involved with anything that has to do with plastic or plastic packaging.
Use Eco-Friendly Delivery Methods
Eco-friendly delivery methods mean that you basically have to use vehicles that either run on electric or hybrid power. The less fossil fuel you can consume during delivery, the better. Ensuring such delivery practices is easier when you are delivering within a short-range. You can just use electric bikes or vans for that purpose. Long distances are more difficult to work with, as electric trucks are not that mainstream yet.
You can still, however, use electric pickup trucks and vans to handle long-distance deliveries. Although not the ideal vehicles for such deliveries, they will still be eco-friendly. Once electric trucks become more readily available to the public, you can then make the switch to them.
That is all. Coupled with proper inventory planning, these simple yet impactful practices are what will help your eCommerce business achieve sustainability. Ensuring these things will allow you to cement yourself and your business as an environment-friendly entity.
