You’ve got mail — or rather, e-commerce deliveries. And it’s increasingly likely that those products could arrive in a mailer instead of a box. Mailers are having a moment amid market evolutions and shape, size and reuse innovations. While the e-commerce surge has helped this packaging format gain prominence, sustainability aspirations such as substrate switches and material reduction are taking demand to the next level.  Whatever the reasons, mailer manufacturers are riding the wave and chipping away at corrugated boxes’ stronghold as the most used packaging format. Ryan Fox, corrugated packaging market analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, has noted a recent “acceleration” of paper mailer use and projected it would further eat into corrugated box volumes in 2026. Others agree with the magnitude of the movement.

Ahlstrom is extending its product range of pressure-sensitive adhesive packaging tape applications. MasterTape® Pack supplements the fiber-based product offering supporting megatrends like e-commerce and the global need for more sustainable packaging solutions. There are approximately 30 billion square meters of packaging tape worldwide, and the numbers are growing with the expansion of e-commerce. Ahlstrom's MasterTape® WAT and MasterTape® Pack offer a high-quality product range for packaging tape applications. They address the need for high-quality performance packaging tape backings while providing customers with a sustainability-driven tape solution that protects and secures packages with the utmost care.

Trade, lightweighting and extended producer responsibility laws are changing certain dynamics within the U.S. corrugated box industry, according to the Fibre Box Association at Pack Expo. General manufacturing, distribution, e-commerce and agriculture are top markets for corrugated boxes. E-commerce has helped to offset losses due to manufacturing outsourcing to other countries. Nearly all the fiber used to manufacture corrugated boxes domestically is sourced from U.S. mills, according to FBA. “We have a very small amount of corrugated that’s imported, and almost all the paper that’s produced in the U.S. goes to boxes made here in the U.S. We’re very insular in that way,” Martin said. The local sourcing plays into a key feature of corrugated: sustainability.  Last year, up to 75% of cardboard available for recycling in the U.S. was indeed recycled and turned into new products.