Running an e-commerce business is advantageous because people do a good portion of their shopping online. E-commerce is generally more convenient for customers, and it can take away the costs and worries of running a physical store or partnering with retailers. However, even with these baseline advantages, you may be looking for a way to improve your e-commerce business to make it more attractive to people and more representative of your values. If so, a smart thing to do is shift it toward greater eco-friendliness. Find out how to make your e-commerce business more sustainable with these points.
Make Your Products Greener
A good place to start as you seek out how to make your e-commerce business more sustainable is to make your products themselves greener. You can do this in a number of ways. For instance, you could go back to the drawing board with the raw materials that make up your products and seek to include greater proportions of recycled or more ethically produced resources. In addition, you can design your products to last a long time rather than making them disposable. If your products are more durable or repairable, they’ll ultimately lead to less waste in the future as your customers use them.
Market these aspects to customers, and manage your customer testimonials effectively to show that your products maintain a high level of quality that strengthens their sustainability.
Reduce Facility Energy Waste
You can improve your e-commerce business by reducing the energy waste at the facilities out of which you operate. In offices and warehouses, you could switch traditional incandescent light bulbs to LEDs, as these last much longer and utilize significantly less electricity. You could also look at better sealing your facilities with insulating windows and doors to lower your HVAC needs. Furthermore, making sure that your appliances are Energy Star–rated and that you shut off machinery immediately when it’s not in use can decrease your negative impact on the environment.
Use Sustainable Packaging
The packaging in which you send your products is a great aspect to focus on when you’re trying to achieve greater sustainability. Packaging is highly visible, so you can use it as yet another selling point to environmentally minded customers. To create sustainable packaging, you could make boxes and other elements from recycled materials or reduce the amount of materials that comprise each package overall. Additionally, when people order more than one product from your website, you could place all the items together in one package rather than in multiple boxes. These efforts may seem more expensive at first, but a strong reason why your brand should use sustainable packaging is that it can actually save you money on shipping. You’ll be able to identify where you’re using more materials than necessary and reduce package weights, which can lead to lower costs every time you send out an order.
