Packaging that returns: kraft mailers enter circulation

Single-use packaging is the quiet cost of e-commerce. This spring we are retiring it for a large slice of our volume.

The new kraft mailer is a laminated, weather-sealed envelope designed for twenty round trips. Customers drop it in any Tern locker or hand it to any courier; a printed QR ties each return to a merchant credit.

In the six-month pilot with twelve fashion brands, 74 percent of mailers came back — far above the 40 percent the model needed to beat single-use on both cost and carbon.

From April, reusable is the default for fashion and small goods on domestic lanes in Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria, with the rest of the network following by autumn.