Smart Container Loop and expert extend collaboration

After five successful years, Smart Container Loop GmbH and the electronics retailer expert will continue their collaboration until at least 2029. This allows the specialist for reusable shipping systems to offer its customer from Langenhagen near Hanover a sustainable alternative to conventional cardboard shipping for the next five years.

(Pullach) Smart Container Loop GmbH, a service company specialized in reusable shipping systems, announces the extension of its contract with expert. After five years of successful collaboration, both companies agreed to continue the partnership for another five years. expert SE, headquartered in Langenhagen, Lower Saxony, is a trading group for consumer electronics, information technology, telecommunications, entertainment, and household appliances. As Germany’s second-largest electronics retailer, the company offers its customers the highest level of service and consulting expertise.

To promote sustainability and better product protection, the specialist retail cooperation completely switched the shipping of goods from cardboard to the reusable system of Smart Container Loop in 2019. The system consists of logistically well-thought-out containers, each sealed with a lid. A seamless track-and-trace software ensures precise tracking of the containers. These are an integral part of the conveying and picking technology in the expert fulfillment center opened in Langenhagen in early 2022. The containers are packed and palletized here with a high degree of automation. From there, the electronics retailer supplies its affiliated dealers throughout Germany.

Significantly reduced damages and losses

“The advantages of our cooperation with Smart Container Loop are obvious: By packaging our goods in more robust reusable containers, we have significantly reduced damages and losses in goods transport and additionally simplified the goods receipt for our specialist dealers. Moreover, transport in reusable containers is more sustainable than shipping in cardboard, which is also a decisive selection criterion for expert. Therefore, I am pleased to continue the successful collaboration with Smart Container Loop,” says Christian Heinrich, Head of Distribution Logistics at expert.

With its reusable systems for the B2B sector, Smart Container Loop offers many shippers a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to the ever-increasing shipping cardboard costs. Compared to single-use packaging, which still has a high water and especially CO₂ consumption even when recycled, shipping a single reusable container can save 50 percent of CO₂. This is because even recycling requires raw materials to be transported, shredded, cleaned, and reprocessed in an energy-intensive manner. Last but not least, the systems already meet the requirements and specifications set out in the draft of the EU Packaging Regulation (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation – PPWR).

Grown together with the customer

Leopold Schoeller, Managing Director of Smart Container Loop, states: “Since our founding in 2019, we have not only established ourselves as a specialist for reusable shipping systems in the B2B sector but have also grown together with our customer expert. We are pleased to continue this success story together in the coming years. Until at least 2029, we want to work together for more sustainability in package logistics. Because with this, we can make a significant contribution to protecting our environment.”

Photo: © trans-o-flex