new delhi india&39s online retailers are thinking out of the box, in a manner of speaking. with hordes of ecommerce companies aspiring to be the next flipkart, some of them are trying to rise above the clutter by using striking packaging. while the corrugated box symbolises urban india&39s wholehearted embrace of internet shopping, no longer is it merely a piece of folded cardboard.even the market leader is upgrading its packaging. as the country&39s largest ecommerce company, flipkart. com ships almost 5 million items a month, 3 million of them in corrugated boxes. these containers now come printed with board games and puzzles &mdash sudoku, snakes and ladders, ludo &mdash or animal prints as it seeks to leverage that lastmile connect for brand recall. some of the packages used by myntra.com, which flipkart is taking over, are even designed to be reused as jewellery boxes while the larger ones can be cut and used as clothes hangers."a few years ago, packaging and shipping was simply a way to receive a product purchased online, but things have changed now," said ganesh subramanian, coo of myntra. "people are paying attention to packaging and presentation as a crucial part of their shopping experience." aakriti khanna hasn&39t thrown away the boxes she got from shopnineteen. com, from where she buys clothes and shoes. "packaging really matters when it comes to the overall shopping experience and i like to order more if a well packed and presented parcel is delivered," said the new delhibased wedding planner.she has about a dozen shopnineteen. com boxes, black with white and green doodles, in her east of kailash apartment. she plans to turn them into side tables or lamp bases. "the gratification of shopping will definitely go up if the boxes are usable," said the 22 year old. another online shopper said she was delighted to get a package gift wrapped in ribbons when she ordered from forevernew.co.in, the indiaspecific website for the australian fashion retailer. "product packaging is a great marketing tool," said subramanian of myntra."it&39s the brand&39s first impressionconnect with its customer." flipkart is looking to prolong the life of the box. "we have added games on our boxes as a pleasant surprise for our customers," said ankit nagori, vice president, marketplace. "in this case, we turned the prosaic box into a ludo board. this is also in tune with a line of packaging we are trying to pursue we want all our packets to have a second life, be retained and reused by the customer.having begun the experiment six months ago, currently about 50 of flipkart&39s boxes comes with board games and the company says this will grow. amazon.in, myntra.com and jabong. com have all been airing television commercials with corrugated boxes featuring prominently in tv commercials. thanks to the online retail boom, box makers expect almost 10 of their business to come from this segment in the next five years. 
