CES- It’s all about the box!

Walking through CES is always a kid in the candy store experience for me – mouth wide open with starry eyes and a mind running wild with ideas.

Seeing more than a million square feet of products at CES that require packages makes a packaging guy feel like a kid again. From flat screen TVs the width of three (3) quarters side-to-side, and 3D printers that can create ideas in moments, to robots that cater to your every whim, they all have one thing in common – they all need a package.

To that point, USPS dedicated their whole booth to the box! Again, as a packaging guy walking up to a huge CES booth with ten foot tall letters saying, “it’s all about the box”, I can’t imagine a better point in time of my career. I have been saying that for thirty years.  USPS did a great job of highlighting their laptop, tablet, and cell phone shippers along with their whole service offerings. Knowing that each package can accommodate any laptop, tablet, or cell phone on the market today, makes these packages easily adaptable for business and end users.

What about other industry packaging? I saw typical retail packaging with chipboard cartons and see through windows, and wonder why they all look the same?  Who made the chipboard and clear window package the defacto standard for retail products? I get the need for marketing and informational verbiage to be available to the consumer, but to see so many of the same style packages support a single industry leads me to believe there is an opportunity to disrupt the current packaging model.  EPE is approaching this opportunity way different and will be disruptive – soon!

CES highlighted the need for EP3.

To see thousands of highly engineered products that companies have spent millions on research, design, and manufacturing, only then to place their ultra cool and hip product in a block of EPS end caps is archaic. EP3 is just as cool as the products that it protects and extends your product cool factor to the packaging and overall customer experience. In the environmental world, if EP3 were applied to all the products at CES, mother earth would be about 100 million pound lighter.

I could write for hours about the products at CES and how they have changed over the years since I’ve attended the event, but let’s talk about the box.  It’s clear, these new products are our future­- not a PC to be found anywhere and yet I saw antiquated PC packaging still being used.  Same abundance of cushioning material and over packing.  Why?

Packaging seems to be behind the technology curve, and that is the exact reason why EPE is working so hard to catch it up by developing the Perfect Package methodology and engineering products like EP3.   Someone has to keep up to par with all the new cool products with cool packaging that is cost and environmentally effective.  I can’t think of a better company than EPE to lead the way!