 Good afternoon. I'm Rebecca Marquez, and I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar on PMMI's 2018 e-commerce report. Over the next hour, we're going to listen to the findings of this report by author Donna Ritzin with DDR Communications, where she will discuss what's current, what's new, and what's changing. President of DDR Communications, Donna founded the company 25 years ago. DDR's business is based on a direct response methodology that delivers market research, business development, strategic alliance and marketing intelligence to companies in virtually every business-to-business industry. DDR's experience is backed by over 35 years in marketing communications. A few housekeeping notes. Everyone is muted throughout the webinar. If you have any questions that you would like to ask the presenter, please type them in the chat box that is located at the bottom corner of your screen. At the end of this presentation, which will last approximately 45 to 50 minutes, Donna will be available to answer your questions. At this time, I would like to hand the webinar over to Donna Ritzin. Go ahead, Donna. Thanks, Rebecca, and thank you all for joining our presentation this afternoon, this morning, depending on where you are, on e-commerce, I think, inside the box. So I will go through the presentation here this morning and give you an idea of what's going on in e-commerce and where we got this information. There's lots of quotes throughout this report. I won't point to all of them. These reports have a tendency to take a life of their own once you download this presentation yourself and maybe present it internally. So I've given you enough information on all the slides as you'll see going forward that really support and uphold what's the information that we're looking at today. Certainly the whole demand of the consumer, which we are all the consumers, the whole expectation of immediate delivery is something that's really changing our world. So let's take a look at who did we talk to, where did we get this information? So we interviewed 55 different companies, food, beverage, nutraceuticals, personal care, household products, and pharmaceuticals to find out what they're doing. We talked to brand manufacturers in those markets. We talked to logistics 3PL suppliers. We brought in the opinion of some of the experts in the industry who are working in e-commerce and we talked to some of the e-tailers as well. To give you an idea of the size of the companies, a majority of them were large CPG companies, some medium, some small to get their opinion of everything that's going on. Certainly manufacturing and packaging of the future is going to look different than it does today. So if we look at kind of the tools of change, I had read an article in the October issue of Wired Magazine that talked about our human behavior. We particularly don't like to change. We're resistant to it, but if we're given the proper tools, it makes change more acceptable and easier in our lives, in our business lives as well. So biotechnology and nanotechnology both are changing the whole medical community. We have artificial intelligence. There's lots of information being written about that now entering into manufacturing, both augmented reality, virtual reality is changing our world, smart manufacturing is occurring. Blockchain is something that is yet to be proven, but it's being talked about a lot to have a secure way to transfer information. Cybersecurity is at the top of the list of every manufacturer's need as well as our own personal need to protect our identities. And that brings us to the whole e-commerce omni-channel and where that's leading us and that's what we're going to concentrate on today. So e-commerce certainly is changing our world. Brand manufacturers are saying that it's evolving all around us. It's something that is difficult to keep up with since the demands are changing so quickly. But what they need to really pay attention to is flexible manufacturing, having the ability to meet the changes in packaging and smaller sizes and smaller pack counts. And logistics is certainly posed for rapid growth. We'll get into each of these subjects as we move through the information here today. The product needs to be protected as it moves through the e-com channel. Right-sized containers is another big topic that's being talked about. We're certainly all getting the tremendously large boxes at our doorstep when there's only a small product inside that's something that the industry is certainly going to be looking at and correcting. There's a lot of repercussions from that we'll get into as well. And everything is digital. It's certainly a digital world. In the Automation Report we talked about what's predicted in terms of the data points and data connection that's coming in the future. Right now in 2018 it's predicted to top 11 billion connections. And that's adding about over 300 million new devices are connected to the Internet each month. And that's not including our cell phones or our tablets. It's forecast to reach 50 billion by 2020 which is two years away, less than two years away. So it's significant digital everything that's going on in our world. We've heard about it a lot, the lack of labor, the lack of skilled labor, even unskilled labor. Automation is working to replace some of that. In the on-demand delivery that Amazon particularly has set up and had us expect now that we have delivery of everything on demand. Although this is not a report about Amazon, they certainly will be mentioned. And looking at the last mile of delivery, how is that going to take place? It's a challenge that's going on right now. Drones are being looked at, many different things that are being looked at in terms of really analyzing that last mile of delivery. And we'll get into all these subjects in a bit more detail as we move through this. So navigating e-commerce is something that the CPGs need to look at and building a business case is something that is on the top of their mind as to why are we doing this, how are we going to do this, how are we going to implement this. And the changes are happening so quickly that everyone is running to keep up and get up to speed with this. So think inside the box started to evolve as we were doing our interviews because it's what's inside the box that we as consumers, there's the phenomena of the opening the box experience, looking at how big is that box, making that secondary carton actually become a primary, the primary shipping carton. And again, we'll kind of get into the details of that as we go forward. But we as consumers expect that ability to connect everything that we want, we want to be able to order it online, track it, maybe switch the address, all different kinds of things that we're looking at being able to do with our smart phones and portable devices. So it's become an intensely personalized experience in terms of how we shop online and what does that mean for the manufacturers of our products. It's really causing an omnichannel and to kind of get an idea of the difference of what is a single channel, it was when we could, we would listen to the radio and we would have one aspect of how we're getting our information. Then there's the multi-channel where we can get that information from several different places. Maybe we see it in a magazine and we hear it on the radio and we see it on TV. But now the omnichannel is connecting all of these things together. We can, as I just mentioned, we can order online, we can pay online, we can have it delivered to us the next day, we can have it delivered in several different ways. We can have it, we can go pick it up, we can have it delivered to our door, we can have it even delivered in their trunk if you have the right type of smart car for that. And I even just read recently that some of the deliveries that are taking place and it's a launch experiment by UPS in Seattle and Atlanta is an e-bike. So in their inner city, they're looking at having an electric pedal-assisted cargo bicycle, kind of like a little UPS truck behind you on a bicycle that will deliver products to our door or depending on, you know, our businesses, whatever is in that inner city, something interesting that's developed since we've actually done this report. And the Amazon effect, as I talked about, is really driving this. And you kind of look what came first. Did we ask for overnight shipping? Or did Amazon offer us overnight shipping free of charge? And we all jump on to that, of course. Now the expectation is we want free shipping and we want to get it overnight. So Amazon has definitely created this entire consumer effect that's changing our world. They're looking at frustration free packaging to be able to make things easier to open. There's an entire frustration free packaging guidelines that Amazon has for the companies that they ship products for. But reducing waste everywhere wherever possible is definitely the bottom line. So e-commerce is not only changing the rules of the game, it's really starting a whole new game. And manufacturers need to think about how am I going to fulfill e-commerce? Am I going to do it myself? Am I going to use a third party? Am I going to use Amazon? About a third of the manufacturers now are selling direct. You can go on to their websites. They have a cart. You can order from them directly. And then how they get that to you is what they're really trying to figure out is, you know, where do I go? Do I use the distribution system I have now? Do I need to use a third party? Over two of five brand manufacturers are using 3PL warehouses. And about a fourth of them are fulfilling e-commerce on their own in-house. In over half of the interviews that we had with the manufacturing companies are already selling through Amazon. So the kinds of things that they need to think about, it's really a mind shift in terms of where is e-commerce going and what does it offer and what does it mean to my business. Manufacturing has to have a much greater level of flexibility, smaller runs, individual packaging, bundling of one, and then being able to justify those expenses on the manufacturing line to accommodate e-commerce. And then product delivery certainly is different than putting a product on the retail shelf, as opposed to delivering it directly to the consumer. So there's really a complex supply chain that needs to be considered. And it starts with operations, needs to be efficient. Where does automation play into this whole e-commerce subject in terms of automation is already going on at manufacturing. So investigating and looking into robotics, voice picking at some of the 3PLs, more RF scanning, how do they keep track of this and look at this differently is more of a unit of one than a pallet load going to a retail store. Location is important, having products closest to the consumer. Software, what kind of software is going to be needed to improve traceability, have all the data collection that they need, it's all got to be compatible, resources just in terms of people resources, and a whole new business model is developing that's going to be able to bring all of this information together and make it seamless and efficient for manufacturing. So we really looked at this, there is, it's a hyper growth that's going on really defining the future of the e-commerce market. So we looked at several different sources to kind of get an idea what is how large is this in the US? It's certainly over 4 billion. It's less than 5 billion projected in 2018. But it's forecast by 2020, which again is a very short time frame to be over 684 billion for e-commerce market. And if we look at some of the indicators, is this going to be achievable, attainable, is it really moving that fast? There's some statistics here on the far right, right next to the picture. It shows that 9.5% of total sales is e-commerce sales. And if we look at the triangles kind of down at the bottom of the page there, we looked at some comparisons. So we looked at the fourth quarter of 2017. And how did that compare to the first quarter of 2018? So just over one quarter period, it increased 3.9%. And if we look at a little bit broader picture, we looked at the first quarter of 2017 and compared it to the first quarter of 2018, it grew over 16%. So it's showing that there's significant growth in this market. And steady growth in terms of the number of establishments. In 2012, the number of establishments for e-commerce was ranked 35 when you looked at all the different outlets in terms of how our goods are transported and available to us. It ranks eighth in 2016. So it jumped very significantly in just a few years. But there is signs of somewhat of a slowdown in terms of the number of e-commerce establishments that are growing. So if we look at the between 2007 and 2016, that whole entire period had a KGAR of over 26% growth. But if we look particularly at just 2012 to 2016, more recent years, that KGAR has slowed down to 7.5%. Now I say slowdown, it's certainly not a slow-moving market. It's just that it's not moving in terms of the number of establishments growing for e-commerce as it did in the hold.com boom that was earlier in the decade. And we know that this is affecting everyone. We looked at this from the standpoint, is there a particular group in the generations that is jumping on to e-commerce more than others? And really, from baby boomers to the whole generation Z, we're all ordering more of our products online with increasing expectations of it arriving quickly. Almost all consumers, 95%, believe that packaging significantly affects their purchasing experience. Nearly all Americans that have Internet access have made an online purchase. Many of them probably just in the last month. Over half of the consumers now prefer to shop online. And over half of the search sessions for e-commerce originate from mobile devices. So we're certainly becoming a mobile world in terms of how we order our products. We don't even always know where they're coming from. They could be coming from around the world as we're shipping around the world as well. In over half of consumers, if you have a bad experience when you have a package arrive to you, then it definitely can affect your loyalty to that consumer. So that's where Think Inside the Box really became prevalent because CPG companies really need to think bolder, be bold and act bold when it comes to delivering packages and their products now directly to the consumer. So there's new considerations that need to be taken into account regarding product packaging. The primary package in many instances now is less important for promoting the product and more important for protecting the product because the retail shelf purchase is more about what does the product look like, catching the image and the attention of that consumer in a very short timeframe as they're moving down retail aisles. Now there's a switch to, they've already made that choice. How do you get that product to the consumer? So the secondary package is traditionally the box that our products come in, but something that Amazon is asking is, we don't want to do a box inside of a box. So a good example I can give you is that recently I ordered a vacuum cleaner online. That was a box within a box. So I had a lot of packaging material that I had to dispose of. Looking at that is a possibility where that primary shipper that's got graphics all around it, ready for the retail shelf, can be changed to be the actual box that product is shipped in, and any of those graphics or needs could be inside the box. So when that lands on our doorstep, that does not show as a sign of okay, I have a vacuum cleaner sitting on my front doorstep and potential draft. So lots of different things that we have to think about between the primary package, the secondary package, and certainly the tertiary package now of unit loads and banding and pallets. That's not going to go into the consumer any longer. That's something that is certainly far less important. And there's really pushback happening from the consumer from our side and saying, there's way too much packaging that you're delivering to me. And that's causing repercussions throughout the industry that we'll take a look at here in a minute. So we really need to think differently when you're evaluating opportunities in the global marketplace. It's kind of level the playing field, large companies and small companies with a presence online. It's now you don't see how large is that company? Where do they locate? How many people do they have? It's really given small companies the opportunity to play at the same level as large companies, because it's all about getting that product to the consumer as quickly as possible. That can happen for any size company. Brand names in terms of what we're looking for online, the brand names are out there. And again, small companies can begin to establish a brand online very quickly. So it's really think about packages and units instead of cases, creating the primary package carton to function as the shipper carton. And really the whole sustainability, the packaging that comes to us, we want to be able to dispose of it and recycle it and not have all that end up in a landfill. And it's certainly increasing the curbside waste that's occurring in all of our communities. It's it's wreaking a bit of havoc on our municipalities with the amount of waste that they're dealing with now. So what if there was something we talked about with one of the experts? What if there's a returnable consumer totes system that actually you transport back and forth, similar to the way milk was delivered 50 years ago, you would leave your milk bottle outside in a crate, they would take the empties and they would give you the new. So maybe there's something in that where there's a returnable, non waste system that can actually deliver our products more efficiently. Certainly things to think about in the future. In CPGs are evaluating all of these different types of options to increase their efficiency. They're looking at digital print on demand, single wrapping a product, certainly minimizing product leak must occur. And just looking for options in their own plant maybe maybe look up. We talked with someone who said, you know, putting their conveying equipment up mounted hired to maximize their space, all kinds of things that our manufacturers are needing to think about and look at. So the most important consideration at each stage of the e-commerce supply chain is really going to be damage prevention and package reduction. They want to minimize random packs. We're talking here with a senior specialist engineer of an OTC company. They really were looking to move and unitize and put things together into a case to push out with end of line. So approximately two and five brand manufacturers are considering a change to their primary package needs to be like I mentioned leak proof. If Amazon touches or needs to repackage a product in any way, there is a charge that goes back to the manufacturing company. So any kind of leak product or even something that would emit an odor or somehow infiltrate other products in the box because there's many products now that your product could be packaged with that isn't like other products. Single serve smaller package sizes and the whole late stage personalization and maybe seasonal messages that's occurring at the end of the line that really makes it a personal experience for consumers needs to be lighter weight and certainly again damage prevention of the primary package and nearly three or four brand manufacturers are also looking for changes to their secondary carton smaller pack counts reduction in carton size like I mentioned maybe moving to shrink wrap tray more robust carton design for your for the primary carton that can serve as the direct shipper carton direct print and certainly right sized cartons as we as we looked at earlier. So thinking fundamentally it's different packaging is different for the e-com market than it is for the standard retail shelf. So it's it's the think inside the box again to know your customers and what they're looking for their first impressions definitely count with the whole like I said the phenomenon of this unboxing experience that you can find on YouTube shrinking that primary package by size and portion protecting it as it needs to move through the e-commerce supply chain right size secondary packaging and then all of this we need to have data optimization that's something that's occurring already with the advancement of automation. So some of the technology opportunities we'll look at next. You know what's in the years ahead is more integration begins to occur flexible machines become available in streamlining that fulfillment process to protect the product looking at the right size boxes and maximizing the resources that we have and expanding those to be more automated to make things more efficient and more streamlined. So we're looking at e-commerce. We talked to some people that really were thinking of building a new line for e-com market diverting end of line in terms of some of their products are going to go off and be packaged for retail and some of those products are going to be sent off on an individual basis maybe bundle wrapping with other products like them or certainly a different diversion when it comes from delivering to retail to the consumer. And we talked with three of five brand manufacturers are increasing their machine purchases. So there's definitely spending going on in this market specifically to look at and answer the challenges for e-com marketing. And then we talked to the logistics suppliers and most all of them four out of five they predict spending more on machine automation and technology improvements in the future as well. So a place that you can go to help them really look at what their needs are and how many of them can move away from manual labor. So about two out of three of the companies where we're looking for are looking to make purchases for secondary packaging nearly half looking for warehouse handling equipment about a third of people still looking for marketing coding equipment about another third for primary packaging and looking at vision and sensors. So there's lots of activity going on that's really spurring purchasing and in the need to upgrade the operations that manufacturers are using today. So e-commerce is certainly the opportunities exist. They're looking for greater integration to have more intuitive sensors be more flexible as I've mentioned and to accommodate the changing needs that manufacturing is looking at now nearly half of the brand manufacturers that we talk to are looking for machines now that are going to be integration ready. They have to be able to collect data. They have to be able to bring that data up to their management systems so that you can have a real entire view of your manufacturing process. And to do this to really address e-com nearly half of the brand manufacturers that we talked to are actually creating positions that VP of e-commerce directors of e-commerce that are looking at this entire change in that's emerging and how they can handle it. So a lot of companies are actually creating positions to do that. The kinds of things that they're looking at in terms of the functionality is certainly fully integrated and connected a standard platform smarter sensors for data acquisition. This is probably nothing new that you haven't already heard about. But it certainly confirms that these are the list is getting longer of what the machines need to be able to do in the future be more flexible to handle a variety of sizes. There needs to be a more interactive intuitive HMI needs to be more safety improvements incorporated into that both as cleaning as well as operator safety. OEE companies are measuring that now. Product traceability must be on the table. They're looking for faster startups faster changeover faster changeover was at the top of our list for many years. Those functionalities are available in the marketplace now. So companies are really starting to see the ability to change over faster. Preventive maintenance even predictive maintenance as we collect more data in our manufacturing sites. And then really simpler machines for less skilled labor. But that doesn't mean it's not functioning at a high level. It's functioning at a very high level and intuitive and easy to operate. So we talk to the supply chain as well through all of this. And they're really this is obviously ecom is affecting the supply change significantly moving product closer to the consumer both warehousing packaging and delivering those products so that that last mile of delivery is as close as possible to the consumer. And it's really causing a significant increase in the three PLs every three PL that we talked to predicts growth in the next few years. We talked to one director of marketing at one of the logistics companies and they said they only exist because of ecommerce. Now they've been formed in the recent years to accommodate this whole delivery of our products directly to us. And so if we look at kind of some statistics behind this, general warehousing and storage has grown 3.2% in the span between 2012 2016 refrigerated warehouse and storage is not growing quite at the same pace. But it certainly is seen an uptick in that where warehousing and storage needs to occur. We talked to contract manufacturers and contract packages. They predict their business to grow by double digits just because of the ecommerce business. A lot of what's going on in terms of new products or single wrapping or delivering and bundling. Some of this is going to contract packages that have the ability and the equipment to do this. And it's certainly going to increase their business as well. So brand manufacturers are thinking about machine and material considerations. Your e-tailers are thinking about fulfillment and distribution. The logistics providers are thinking about packaging and delivering. And the consumers were the ones doing the online shopping and looking for the unboxing experience. So it's ecommerce is affecting all stages from the beginning to the end. We being the consumers at the end of what's happening in this market. So online shopping with the growth and online shopping also opens the door to more counterfeiting. More counterfeit products entering our supply chain. PMMI has a very thorough report on the whole brand protection and traceability that gets into this in much greater detail. But as I said at that time, if the cost online is too good to be true, it could be counterfeit. So if there's something you particularly purchase and you find it online and it's astronomically less cost, it's probably not the product that you're thinking about. But in some instances, there's markets where this is driven to be counterfeit. And that's what the consumer looks for. So it's really just consumer beware. The brand manufacturer is responsible for initiating that trackable chain of command to authenticate and make sure those products that we're ordering are legitimate and they're the ones that they manufactured. But it's also the responsibility of the entire supply chain and that's where there's a lot of handoff in terms of the next delivery being able to track it all the way from the beginning to the end, which we know we can do that on our smartphones with UPS and FedEx tracking. We know exactly when it's coming. We're alerted when it arrived. We're alerted when it's at our doorstep. So there's certainly a lot of that tracking that's going on and more to continue. And 1D bar code certainly anchors this, but manufacturers are looking beyond that for tamper-evident packaging and 2D bar codes that really expand the information and communicate directly more with the consumer. So growth in global e-commerce has really driven the growth in corrugated material. Both the brand manufacturers, nearly half of them and over half of the logistics suppliers predict using more corrugated material. Smaller pack counts, smaller carton sizes means more corrugated. Additional packaging protection in, for instance, now with e-commerce means more corrugated material. The corrugated industry has seen growth at about 4% annually predicted for the next several years. But if we really look at this, that corrugated material is ending up in our front door. It's ending up in our recycle bins. It's ending up in our municipalities. And it's creating a shortage of the secondary corrugated market. Retailers would bundle this, sell it back as used corrugated for the recycling market. And that now is causing a shortage because a lot of that corrugated now is going into our recycle bins. It's not going back into the secondary corrugated market. There's several factors that are kind of pointing to a slowdown. We as consumers have a pushback that we're getting too much packaging. So are there other ways that this can be delivered? We're seeing Amazon and a lot of the retail online stores now sending it in flexible bags. Maybe there's an expansion of flexible sleeves. There's other ways that the market is starting to look at how do we reduce the use of corrugated waste that is actually e-commerce has sort of created an upside down model of sustainability. We're using more materials than our objective is to use less. So when we look at delivery, there's certainly different considerations taken into account of how our products are delivered. And that's where the manufacturers really need to look. Do they use the existing supply chain? Do they establish warehouse locations? Do they rent warehouse locations, which is an interesting business model of a warehouse just renting out space as needed sort of like the Airbnb of warehouses. Encrypted chain of command needs to be looked at just dynamic routing. How do we get product A from point A to point B as quickly as possible? There's some skepticism that drone delivery will actually occur. But it's being tested in several different markets. How do we do that? Driverless vehicles. That was shown actually at a PAC expo conference several years ago of how would a driverless vehicle move into a neighborhood with a drone on top of it and do that last mile of delivery? And is there even a humanoid robot that will walk it up your walkway to get to your front door? All kinds of things that are really being looked at. Uber now has a delivery service. So it's amazing the kind of businesses that have grown out of this whole ecommerce phenomena. Logistic suppliers look at a vastly different supply chain in the future. Maybe display only stores if you remember the whole service merchandise model where everything was on display. And you came down a conveyor. That is something that the companies are starting to look at in terms of where and how do we reach the consumer to be able to go and touch our product. Retail certainly isn't going to disappear in any way, but it's going to evolve into a different experience. Smaller boxes, individually racked products as we've already talked about. So let's take a kind of a look at the future. Because the future really is now. And the future just keeps arriving. So we always look out at the future, but we're kind of in the midst of this significant change that's going on at our manufacturing sites, as well as in our own consumer lives of how we look at products, where we go, what our expectations are. It's really all speed to market. That's the challenge for manufacturing companies. And how is that going to look different in the future? So some of the top actionable takeaways are to collaborate. Supplier partnerships form closer alliances with e-commerce decision makers that are forming at the CPG companies. You know, explore what they need, what solutions are they looking for, and offer those kinds of solutions. Forming those partnerships with three PLs and warehouses, we just heard that 100% of them are definitely looking for and moving away from manual operations to a more automated process to make that more efficient and utilize the labor that they do have more efficiently. And automation is definitely filling the skill gaps, designing those machines to be more intuitive, more simplistic, introducing robots and even co-bots to fill that space and make that an efficient working environment that moves product out the door quicker, both to your retail locations and now directly to the consumer. And be innovative. In terms of flexible solutions, we know that skews are increasing. They're continuing to increase. Shorter runs with more personalized customized products is on the table. It's become the new normal. So looking at flexible solutions and their machines and their whole manufacturing process is something that CPGs are it's at the top of their list. Right sizing, looking at a box that can make the exact size that's needed as opposed to the big boxes that we're getting with small product inside, making that box shipper match what's in the box, again, thinking inside the box. Packaging protection is number one. We heard that consumers can lose loyalty quickly if they get a product that's damaged. And touch points continue to increase as it moves through the supply chain. So packaging and product protection is paramount. And looking at materials, CPGs certainly would love to have a material that offers greater durability to prevent product damage. It's lightweight to minimize shipping and it's sustainable so it can either be composted or recycled easily. So they're really looking for a tall order of a material. And in a lot of instances, packaging is sustainable, but maybe only portions of it will be sustainable. So looking at that from a standpoint of how do we reach so the whole package that we receive as a consumer can now be something that we can dispose of more easily. And then automate. PMMI has a automation report out that is very thorough and extensive, but it certainly merges in with the whole e-com market, providing automated functionality and integrated solutions. Again, to answer to the lack of labor, everything needs to be IIoT ready. And is every company at this threshold? Not. They're not. And in the automation report really gets into the depth of adopting automation and where a company is at with that adoption. Personalization and customization. We've touched on that being able to build into your end of line, personalizing that product for the consumer, customizing packaging, multi bundling, different products bundled into the same package, many different options that manufacturers are looking at. And this is all causing floor space constraints in manufacturing sites that are already had floor minimal floor space that's available. It's really pushing the real estate boundaries even more to be able to look at what kind of end of line diversions are needed, what's needed in compact modular machines to really become the most efficient in terms of the changes that are happening today. In replacing manual labor, we've talked about this several times. But particularly, we talk to some of the subscription business companies, the meal kits that are out there, the product of the month clubs that are becoming very popular. A lot of these operations are manual now. And they really are looking to introduce more efficient manufacturing and efficient packaging as well. How do they bundle some of this together? How do they get, we talked to one meal kit company, they had 45 different packages that they were trying to deal with in terms of putting a meal kit together. And they're really looking to the industry to help them solve some of those solutions. So e-commerce is certainly moving faster than we can keep up with. That's what we heard from a e-commerce manager from one of the industry leaders. And they're looking to react as quickly as possible to the opportunities that are presenting themselves to them today. And it kind of is a summary here. We looked at 125 different articles and government data and market predictions that are all cited throughout the full report, which you can download at www.pmmi.org slash research to get the executive summary and the full report. And in Appendix B of that report, we have all different categories here that we've divided up these articles and resources for further researcher, just depending on where you want to go with what you're interested in, that's all fully referenced and sourced in the full report. So I will turn this back over to Rebecca. If there are any questions, I would be happy to answer them. And I appreciate you listening in on this today. And thank you very much. And I'll turn it over to Rebecca. Donna, thank you so much for the insights you provided us with this latest report on e-commerce. This was great and super informative. And Donna is correct. We'd like to open up the session for questions. Please enter any questions you would like to have answered in the message chat box at the bottom of your screen. It does look like we already have one question. One of our attendees wants to know if growth in food markets, it looks like growth in food markets be attributed to consumers being able to get products that are not easily obtained through traditional channels like seasonal or regional items. And if that's the case, will that require longer shelf life? Shelf life is something that is it's consistently being looked at in terms of how do we extend shelf life with even meal kits or the prepared kits that we're looking at. I think the whole phenomena of groceries online is something that is personal and continuing to evolve. So that does tend to be a bit more of a generational younger generation doing more grocery shopping online. There's the whole delivery aspect of that now. Walmart is predicting they deliver it within an hour. You can go pick it up. So when we look at extending the shelf life of our products that have a shelf life, yes, absolutely. There is being looked at is how do we do that? How does the packaging look to extend that shelf life? And how does it protect it as it moves from the store to us? It's interesting because when we go to the grocery store and we think of that in our own car, we're not as concerned about, well, did it stay cold? Did it survive the trip as we are now when we're asking someone else to deliver those groceries? Is there going to be, because I think part of the question also is about items that are not obtained through traditional channels. So I mean, the example given are seasonal or regional items, but they could also, I think that could also mean like specialty food items that are difficult to locate at a traditional grocery store. Is that part of this? Is this going to be a component of sort of grocery growth and e-commerce? It definitely will play a role in the growth of groceries and e-com and seasonal items. And part of the question says not easily obtained through traditional channels. I mean, that's what really has driven us to shop online. We can find it easier. You don't know what stores it might be in or might not be in. I think the prediction of how much shopping gets done online is only touching the surface as more consumers find that efficiency, the convenience and the whole experience of not having to go out to shop. Looks like we have a few more questions. One of our attendees is also wondering where some of the people you spoke with, where are these people going to find solutions to their problems, particularly the 3PLs? Well, they're definitely looking to the machine manufacturers, the material suppliers, the suppliers to the industry to help them find some of these solutions. Certainly, it says what trade shows do they go to. We didn't get into that specifics, but Pack Expo was just last month which broke both attendance records and records for exhibitors. So those are the places that companies are going to conferences. The Automation Conference earlier this year actually had several 3PLs and meal kit companies and companies that wouldn't particularly come to those conferences in the past are now showing up at those kinds of conferences. Did anyone you spoke with, particularly 3PLs, mention using any kind of trade associations as resources? It wasn't a question that we got into, but as I just mentioned, certainly Pack Expo is highly acclaimed in terms of where to go to find solutions. We do have a couple more questions. How are delivery service providers dealing with cold and hot weather climate? Definitely looked at from the standpoint of the number of warehouses that have to have refrigeration. That's something that we didn't get into a lot of in-depth conversation about that. That's something that, again, it's protecting the product. So it's protecting it from all aspects of the environment. So many touch points now in the eCommerce channel. Where is it going? Is it going to a hot climate? Is it going to a warm climate? I don't think eCommerce phenomena has changed that very much. Products still need to be protected through the process. They still need to be protected if they're going to a hot climate. So that hasn't really changed. It's just how it's being delivered that's changing. Not necessarily anything different in terms of you still have to think about where that product is going. Thanks, Donna. And we do have just a couple more here. One of our attendees would like to know if eCommerce is pushing CPGs to continue the rigid to flexible conversion due to weight concerns. That was something we did touch on, yes. It is pushing CPGs in that direction, but it's also moving from a rigid to a rigid. So maybe moving from glass to plastic. It doesn't necessarily that they have to go from rigid to flexible. But as we know in the flexible packaging industry, flexible packaging is continuing to grow. We here in the United States were more accepting now of the flexible packaging stand up pouch stick pack. So flexible packaging still continues to find its use, particularly in food packaging, but also outside of food packaging, there's products that are moving to flexible. And it's something that's on the table at CPG companies is, you know, they're questioning and looking for guidance on what are the options and what are some of the solutions that they can look at. They certainly are looking to form those alliances with your material suppliers, as I said, and your machine builders. You know, it's a collaborative effort that's going on to solve some of these solutions. And we have one more question here. You've touched a lot on the unboxing experience. And one of our attendees of the opinion, and this does make a lot of sense that the unboxing experience makes a lot of sense relative to higher end items and first time purchases. But did you discuss with any of your in any of your interviews, the unboxing experience for more commodity type items that are sort of real, like on a reorder or auto ship basis, it is the unboxing experience as important for those types of items? That's a really good question. We didn't talk about the unboxing experience from the consumer standpoint. So we didn't interview consumers on that. But your higher ticket items certainly are going to have a first time or a only one time only delivery. So the the reorder like I know you can go on grocery and you can have automatically every week or whatever your frequency is, you can have that delivered all the time. So it's not necessarily that it has to be unboxing experience that it's like a phenomena like you're so excited to get this product. But it certainly has to be damage free. The box needs to be protected product needs to be protected so that when those products are open, there is no damage experience. There is no negative experience. So from that standpoint, it's it's still an unboxing experience. It doesn't need to be a big fancy delivery. But it certainly needs to be damage free and no leakage inside the box. None of the products leaked. So yeah, I think the the delivery experience, whether it's a first time or it's every month, it is an important aspect to the consumer. Great, Donna. Thank you so much for that. That's all of our questions right now. Let's leave just a couple more seconds here to see if anybody has any other questions, please be sure to type them in the message box at the bottom of your screen. We have a few more minutes of our webinar left. Some really good questions coming from attendees, by the way. And Rebecca, are they able to download this then the actual webinar online? The webinar will be online by Monday at the very latest where they will you'll be able to review at your leisure at no charge. We do have another question that just came in. There's a lot of talk about rigid packaging moving towards flexible packaging. Was that discussed at all? In this e-commerce report, we talked about it briefly. But PMMI has a new report out on just flexible packaging. So you Rebecca can probably guide you to where that's available. Again, it would be available on PMMI's website. And that's a new report that is available. So it would get into much, much more in depth of the movement from rigid to flexible. And so, Tendi, who had that question, if you have further questions or want some more detail from the report or or anything of that nature, you can feel free to email me at rmarquez at PMMI.org. And I'm happy to answer any additional questions you have or provide any further detail. And if I don't know, I can easily pass it on to Donna as well. Okay, Donna, it looks like we have no more questions at this time. On behalf of PMMI, thank you everyone for participating in today's webinar. As a final note, you will receive an email to complete an evaluation for today's webinar. Please complete the evaluation as soon as possible and let us know how we can improve our webinars in the future. And Donna, thank you so much for a really informative webinar. And I think we can conclude. Have a great day, everyone.