"THE BOX is the sum of all our efforts in the past 3 years to grasp the delivery needs in the world"
Interview with 2019 Green Alley Award finalist LivingPackets
LivingPackets from France competed against more than 250 startups, making it to the Green Alley Award finals! The startup has developed a sustainable packaging solution for online deliveries. “The Box” is an alternative to conventional cardboard boxes and can be reused approximately 1,000 times. Thanks to a built-in camera and scale, The Box can charge delivery fees automatically and it comes with an app which makes tracking possible and offers the opportunity to schedule a pick-up time. Read all about their product and the challenges ahead.
# LivingPackets comes with an app that makes it easy to supervise and track parcels. Is this App necessary to use The Box and does it cost anything?
Presenting THE BOX, with the remote control App, is a requirement for all of our e-commerce partners in order to use our solution. The customer must download the App only once, when choosing THE BOX for his first time, no matter the eCommerce partner. Of course, THE BOX and the App are free for the customers.
# Is the Box more expensive for consumers than other delivery options?
No. We offer THE BOX as “Packaging-as-a-Service”, at no additional cost. We charge the eCommerce partner the same price per use as a cardboard box (plus filling material + tapping + address printing … with simplified handling).
# What are the biggest obstacles you had to face so far?
Even before we start a large mass production, we already face a quasi infinite demand. Unfortunately it is not possible to produce 100s of millions of THE BOX overnight! This is definitely our biggest challenge. Furthermore, our resources are still limited since it takes much time to select, without compromises, the very best (and passionate) people to join our teams in France (Nantes, Paris), Germany (Berlin) and Switzerland.
# There are a couple of competitors already on the market for sustainable packaging solutions. How will you convince consumers to use The Box instead and what is your USP?
Yes they are great and it goes in the right direction. But we definitely don’t know of any similar solution to THE BOX. For example, we can deliver zero-waste packaging at no additional costs, worldwide, while optimizing the existing logistical ecosystem already in place. Additionally to its infinite re-usability, THE BOX is also intelligent and this changes everything. Through direct involvement processes for every player. THE BOX is the sum of all our efforts in the past 3 years to grasp the delivery needs in the world. Therefore, we are in the very fortunate position to have such a high demand that we mainly have a huge production issue. Many E-commerce companies are waiting to offer THE BOX to their customers. They only have to present THE BOX as alternative packaging at the checkout, therefore giving their customers a chance to use it (instead of their usual waste cardboard).