Six Packaging Lessons From the COVID Years That Lasted
India went into a national lockdown on 25 March 2020. For a packaging company, the months after that were a crash course in what buyers really need from a parcel.
Plastic was everywhere in that period, in coveralls, gloves, food containers and delivery bags. Even the stitched seams of a PPE coverall were closed with a thin strip of plastic seam sealing tape.
This post is not about medicine or health. It is about packaging habits. Some of what we all started in 2020 still makes good business sense in 2026. Some of it we were right to drop.
1. Customers now expect a sealed parcel
During the lockdown, people looked at every parcel more carefully before they opened it. I do not think that habit ever went away.
Today a buyer notices a box that looks tampered with, and the complaint usually lands with the seller, not the courier. Branded tape helps here because a cut or a re-taped flap is easy to spot. Our printed tapes carry your name across every seam, and that is harder to fake than a plain roll from the market.
2. Food delivery needs clear labels, not more plastic
Delivery kitchens grew fast in that period. The lesson they learnt was not to use thicker plastic. It was clear marking and a proper seal, so the rider and the customer both know at a glance what is inside.
For Indian kitchens, that means telling vegetarian and non-vegetarian orders apart without anyone opening the bag. A simple veg marking tape on the bag mouth does both jobs at once.
It seals and it tells.
3. One supplier is a risk
Many businesses learnt this the hard way in 2020. When transport stopped between states, a single supplier in another state meant no stock, however good the relationship.
My advice is simple.
Keep two approved suppliers for anything that stops your dispatch if it runs out, i.e. tape, mailers and labels. Give the second one a small regular order so they know your specification. Keep a few weeks of safety stock of those items. It costs a little working capital. A stopped dispatch costs much more.
4. Online orders did not go back
A lot of people bought online for the first time in 2020, and online shopping did not shrink back when the lockdowns ended. So the packing table, which used to be a corner job, became a proper workstation in many small businesses.
What lasted from that change is speed and order at the packing table. Pre-cut tape lengths, mailers in two or three standard sizes, and packing list envelopes to keep the invoice outside the parcel. Small things, but they add up when you pack 300 orders a day instead of 30.
5. Over-wrapping was a panic habit
In 2020, many of us wrapped everything twice. A box inside a bag inside another bag. Nobody wanted a complaint, and plastic was cheap and easy.
Most of that extra wrapping has gone, and it should have. It added cost, weight and waste, and it rarely protected the product better. The government also moved in this direction. Under the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2021, a list of single-use plastic items was banned from 1 July 2022, and plastic carry bags had to be at least 120 microns thick from 31 December 2022.
Right-size the pack.
Use a mailer that fits, one layer of protection that does the job, and paper where paper works. Paper void fill and honeycomb wrap are now a normal sight in ecommerce boxes. I think that change is here to stay.
6. A packing area is part of your quality
In those months, many of us got strict about keeping packing material off the floor, covered and dry. That habit is worth keeping for plain quality reasons. Dusty, damp or crushed packaging makes a good product look careless when the customer opens it. Store cartons and paper rolls on a rack, away from walls and sunlight, and use the oldest stock first.
What did not last
Some things from that time are better forgotten. The panic buying of packaging at any price, the double plastic around every product and the urgent orders with no specification at all. When I look back, I believe the businesses that did best were the ones that wrote down what they needed and stuck to it.
If you want help right-sizing your packaging today, send us your product list and order volumes. We will suggest what you can remove as well as what you can add.
