Competitive Advantage Through Packaging Design? Propositions for Supply Chain Effectiveness and Efficiency

Packaging is becoming increasingly important from a marketing as well as logistics perspective, particularly for actors in consumer product supply chains. However, the role of packaging in creating or contributing to the competitive advantage of a company or a whole supply chain is still unexplored to a large extent. This is even the case in businesses where research has shown the benefits of conscious packaging design and development, and integrated packaging and product development. Similarly, packaging design as a driver for innovation has been studied to a limited extent. This paper elaborates on why the potential of integrated package and product development is realized to such a limited extent and why the potential of packaging innovation in itself is so unexplored for supply chain effectiveness and efficiency. The findings are based on three case studies, an extensive literature review and previous empirical research, resulting in four propositions for future research and development that are of high relevance for product and packaging developers, designers and supply chain managers.