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    Shipping packaging: Unusual examples

    Anyone who sells unusual products on the Internet needs tailor-made packaging. The start-up Mary and Plants ships plants in a specially developed transport packaging from Model.

    Plants by mail

    Sending plants with soil in pots – can you do that? Yes, with the right shipping packaging. Model developed such packaging especially for the start-up Mary and Plants: Swiss customers order pre-potted houseplants online, have them delivered safely to their homes, and the Mary and Plants plant care app helps with questions along the way.

    What is special about this e-commerce packaging: The plant, soil and pot are completely protected, without any filling material.

    Natural, sustainable shipping packaging

    Perfect shape

    Despite its unusual content, the box can be sent cheaply by post. This special packaging required experience, expertise – and some unusual ideas. The Mary and Plants branding was applied using flexo printing.

    Environmentally friendly & efficient

    No plastic, no filler: The sustainable shipping packaging made of corrugated cardboard can be completely recycled into used cardboard. Over 40 different plants can also be sent with just three packaging sizes.

    Unboxing Experience

    Open the box, open the drawer, and enjoy your new houseplant. Ordinary shipping packaging often causes frustration among customers. Not so with the houseplants from Mary and Plants. Unpacking them is actually a fun experience.

    Packaging for Mary and Plants

    Product and packaging

    In line

    At Mary and Plants, customers order houseplants without chemicals. They are not only easier to care for, they also live longer than «usual,» often overbred plants. «It was clear to us that we needed sustainable shipping packaging to match our product,» says co-founder Ivan Putincanin. «No plastic, only corrugated cardboard. Packaging that the customer can dispose of without separating different materials.» 

     

     

    Unique

    Plant Shipping

    There were no examples of this type of shipping packaging on the market. Mary and Plants needed a tailor-made solution to ship their houseplants. How to avoid high shipping costs and filling material? How do you protect sensitive plants and fragile pots? «Model is the right partner for that. Our packaging experts specialize in tailor-made solutions,» explains Thomas Stäheli, Area Sales Manager at Model. «That’s why customers come to us with special requirements.»

    Recycled paper

    Zero waste

    Model has relied on a closed paper cycle in the production of corrugated cardboard and packaging for decades. Our consistent recycling of paper and cardboard convinces our customers – including Mary and Plants. Zero waste, i.e. sustainable raw material management, is important to the start-up. It is fitting that the Model Group has set clear emission reduction targets by 2030 for itself as part of the Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi for short.

    Growth

    Retail is flourishing

    The e-commerce business model of the innovative start-up is growing: «At the beginning we distributed the plants by hand in wooden boxes in the neighborhood. Unimaginable,» recalls Ivan Putincanin of Mary and Plants. «Today, Swiss Post can just deliver or drop off the securely packaged plants. Our logistics have improved many times over, we have been able to increase our capacities and have become much more efficient.»

    «This is what we appreciate about Model: their expertise, personal service, customer service, and their motivation to get a project off the ground. It was a lot of fun to create the packaging together.»

    Ivan Putincanin, Co-Founder / Management at Mary and Plants AG

    Thriving

    «The test runs didn’t work right away,» says Thomas Stäheli from Model about the first packaging ideas for Mary and Plants. «It takes patience, expertise and ideas to achieve the desired result for the customer. Together with our innovation expert Rolf Weilenmann, we constantly refined the construction. That’s how we do things at Model.»

    Result: exemplary transport packaging

    Optimized for logistics

    • Mary and Plants hand packs the plants at its location in Wallisellen
    • The packaging is then collected in large postal containers. 
    • The transport packaging is optimized so there is space in the container for as many packages as possible. 

    Secure transport guaranteed

    • A special lock closes the plant box securely, so it cannot be opened accidentally during transport. 
    • Do the fragile pots stay intact? Yes, our internal stress tests and Swiss Post’s practical tests have shown that. 

    Mail delivery without expensive surcharge

    «Retailers have to pay a surcharge to the post office for fragile goods. We wanted to avoid that,» says Ivan Putincanin from Mary and Plants. «This definitely required the skill and expertise of the professionals at Model. It worked. We can send our plants normally by post.»

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