PACKAGING DEPARTMENTS AND LAST-MILE DELIVERY COMPANIES SHOULD LEVERAGE THESE TWO TAX CREDITS TO HELP THEM RECOVER FROM COVID-19 ECONOMIC HITS.
The pandemic shook the last-mile delivery ecosystem to its core, causing businesses to scramble to satisfy social-distancing protocols and reach customers stranded indoors due to lockdowns.
Stores became mini-warehouses, parcel-drop numbers skyrocketed, and store shipping and curbside pickups became the norm — all to adapt to shifting customer behaviors. Consumers ordered more, waited less, and expected delivery in tamper-free, COVID-19-safe packaging. And yet, they remained resistant to paying extra to help share merchants’ burden of increased costs.
These tax incentives can specifically benefit businesses that had to tackle the following COVID-19-related challenges:
• Addressing safety by choosing packaging that not only suited perishable and delicate products but was also COVID-19-safe.
• Supporting high demand for essential items such as food, household necessities, and pharmaceuticals by developing reliable last-mile delivery networks.
• Catering to evolving consumer expectations of quality and safety by providing same-day and contactless delivery.
• Managing increased operational costs in the face of diminishing profit margins.
While businesses in the last-mile ecosystem had an incredible opportunity to grow, they still had to persevere through these challenges and make some extremely tough decisions. In doing so, they held the US economy together by delivering medicines and other essentials while the pandemic raged.
In facing the unique and unforeseen challenges of the pandemic, these businesses had to:
• Improvise by automating inventory management, investing in new packaging solutions, and setting up new delivery processes.
• Make tough decisions like reshuffling the workforce, paying employees not to work, or even shutting down temporarily to develop ecommerce infrastructure.
Consequently, the US government wants to reward these businesses for their ingenuity and decisiveness and pay back in kind to all businesses that have helped keep citizens fed and safe through the following tax incentives:
Regardless of whether a business was an established ecommerce brand or a regular brick-and-mortar retailer, it improvised. Or rather, only those that improvised survived. And by innovating to survive, a lot of packaging and last-mile delivery businesses became eligible for some key tax incentives.
