In 2024, businesses spent nearly $200 billion on cardboard boxes. That enormous number becomes less surprising when put in the context of just how many packages were sent overall - which is more than the number of stars in the Milky Way. It’s set to increase, too. So, with more shipping, more products, and more people, innovations in packaging have the potential to impact business, the environment, and everyday lives.
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When thinking outside the box means redesigning the box entirely
The other angle on packaging
There’s a growing demand for packages that not only protect the items being shipped but also enhance usability for all customers, including those with disabilities. Accessibility advocates like Molly Burke, a content creator who went blind at 14, highlights this issue: for her, navigating shelves and identifying products by touch is a challenge. “All of the packaging is so similar,” Molly explains. “Every bag feels like another bag, every box feels like the same box.” The consequences of that go beyond frustration.
“I basically always need to have a sighted person come with me, which takes away my independence and my autonomy as a 30-year-old adult woman.”
Molly is far from alone. Approximately 1.3 billion people globally live with significant disabilities, and it’s a group that anyone can potentially join throughout their lives. It’s also a huge opportunity for brands to reach a massive audience. As she notes, “This is a community with dollars to spend. We are a market that you are actively missing out on by not being inclusive.”
Packaging innovations can range from high tech, like digital readers, to something as simple as tactile markings on shampoo and conditioner bottles, where one has a striped pattern and the other has dots to differentiate them. That straightforward change can make a difference for not just the visually impaired, but also illustrates how accessible design is easier to use for everyone. For instance, anyone not wearing their glasses in the shower also needs to know which bottle is which.
“There’s nothing wrong with being blind or being disabled,” Molly points out. “What needs to change is the world. It needs to become accommodating of all of us who live in it.” Accessible packaging – just one of many approaches to innovating in a field that billions of people interact with every day – is a step towards that future. It’s not just about thinking outside the box; it’s about redesigning the box entirely.
Click here to explore other angles with HSBC.
Read video transcript below
MOLLY BURKE: A year and a half ago I got to work on a project where we created an accessible chocolate box.
VOICEOVER: Molly Burke is a content creator and accessibility advocate who went blind at 14 years old.
MOLLY BURKE: Why was I 29 when I got to pick my own chocolate for the first time ever? To be able to open that box of chocolates and find the one that I actually want on my own. It means so much.
VOICEOVER: The other angle on packaging, from The Verge and HSBC.
VOICEOVER: Innovation in packaging is long overdue. Inefficiency is rampant, as the average package is forty percent too large for the contents. That matters, when businesses are spending close to 200 billion dollars in 2024 on cardboard boxes alone.
Innovative approaches like 3D printed packaging – which can seal itself around the product with no wasted space - may help reduce inefficiency and shake up the industry. And it doesn’t have to be cardboard or plastic. Edible packaging made from seaweed is making efficiency sustainable. But efficiency needs to be for everyone.
MOLLY BURKE: I really feel like inclusive, accessible product packaging design is the next wave, the next push in innovating within that space.
Honestly, I basically can’t go shopping without a sighted person coming with me because it’s so confusing. Every bag feels like another bag, every box feels like the same box.
VOICEOVER: But innovation in accessible packaging and design isn’t just to benefit disabled people.
MOLLY BURKE: I always try to communicate to brands that creating accessible products is not charity work. We are a market that you are actively missing out on by not being inclusive.
VOICEOVER: A market of one in six people - that’s one point three billion potential customers. The reality is that accessible and universal design doesn’t just help disabled people. It can help all consumers. For instance, tactile surfaces on shampoo and conditioner, like stripes on one and dots on the other, identify the correct product.
MOLLY BURKE: Somebody like me who would be a braille reader could use that code, but also somebody who has English as a second language, somebody who’s autistic and prefers to use symbols to communicate, somebody who is dyslexic or has a language processing disorder. It’s universally accessible to people who are in the shower without their glasses on!
VOICEOVER: Whether making products available to more customers or improving shipping efficiency, bringing innovation to packaging isn’t a same-day delivery.
MOLLY BURKE: If you want to take your brand to the next level, you need to be hiring inclusively because we need to be in the room in order to help you make that change. As a society, we have spent so much time, money and energy thinking about how do we cure disability.
And it’s about shifting our mindset and realising if we take that same brain power and those same finances and we put it into creating a world that is universally accessible for all of us, it’s going to benefit everybody so much more.
VOICEOVER: The Verge and HSBC. An Explainer Studio production.
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