Marketing, sales and consumer behaviour – August 2020

Market info machinery, flexible plastic packaging and smart printed packaging
UCIMA (35 kB) reports that Italian packaging machinery manufacturers have recorded their fourth consecutive growth year with a 2.2% increase in turnover in 2019. 20% expect to see growth over the coming months, while more than 40% are anticipating a decline in revenues.
Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) has published a Eunomia market report (5.12 MB) on the production, use, and recycling of flexible plastic packaging in the EU.
According to Smithers, demand for smart and secure printed packaging makes packaging the second fastest-growing section of the worldwide market for security printing. You can read more in a recently published article.

Strong growth in sector packaging free shops
A recent Zero Waste Europe study (summary, 732 kB) on packaging free shops in Europe shows strong growth in shop numbers, job numbers, and total turnover over the past 10 years. By 2023, packaging free shops could be responsible for 10,000 jobs.

EU: loss of sales due to counterfeiting is around €50 billion
According to the EUIPO 2020 Status Report on IPR Infringement (994 kB), the loss of direct sales due to counterfeiting is around €50 billion in the EU.

Consumer behaviour
An IFOP survey, conducted on behalf of ALL4PACK Paris 2020, year, shows that 60% of French consumers have not changed their behaviour since the Covid-19 crisis with regard to packaging. 40% say that they now buy more products with packaging.
Consumers are significantly more concerned about food safety than about environmental issues, according to a recent DNV GL survey that you can download after filling in your details.
The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) is calling on businesses not to use any misleading claims and logos, and to reduce the number of certification labels regarding sustainability. ACM will step up its enforcement efforts regarding these practices. In addition, ACM is calling on the Dutch legislature to introduce stricter rules for certification labels. These are some of ACM’s recommendations in this year’s edition of InSight (159 kB) presented to Dutch lawmakers.

Arthritis-friendly pill strip and marketing of OTC pharmaceuticals
Arthritis medication is too often packed in a pill strip (blister pack) that is not easy to open for people with this condition. This problem will only get worse now that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has determined that a commonly used rheumatic medicine can no longer be supplied in a bottle. ReumaNederland has therefore entered into a collaboration with the University of Twente NVC Chair Packaging Design and Management to develop a arthritis-friendly pill strip. Researchers at the University of Vaasa studied the contextuality of retail packaging cues for marketing globalised OTC pharmaceuticals. An article (2.7 MB) about the research is published in the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.

NVC Chair Packaging Design and Management - Two master assignments
On 16 July 2020, Yanick Brezet held a speech entitled ‘The Package Designing Industry: Packaging development as a strategic value creation tool for packaging converters’ and on 22 July, Jessica Sennema held a speech entitled ‘Decision support system for packaging development.’ Both speeches were part of their master assignment at the University of Twente. Chairman of the assessment committee was professor Roland ten Klooster who holds the NVC Chair Packaging Design and Management.

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