When the imported pulp price increases by 50% in a year, a factory without clear positioning must absorb costs or reduce prices to retain orders. A factory with a specialized brand, proven technical reputation, and long-term customer relationships is different. They have leverage to pass part of the price increase onto customers without losing orders. A brand does not replace operational capabilities, but it is a condition for those capabilities to be valued correctly.
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In 2025, Vietnam imported 638,297 tons of pulp, a 50% increase from 425,485 tons in 2024. At the same time, paper exports decreased by 23.7% due to fierce competition from external markets. These two figures put most domestic paper factories in the same situation: sharply rising input costs and a shrinking output market. The question is not who is affected. The question is who can endure better and why.
The trap of commodities in the paper industry
When a carton workshop has no clear point of difference, customers are left with one criterion for deciding: price. This is the commodity trap. It happens when a product or service is seen as identical across suppliers. Buyers then choose purely by the lowest price.
In the paper and packaging industry, this trap is especially dangerous because most workshops use the same technology, the same imported materials and the same delivery speed. In that situation, "best price, on-time delivery" is no longer an advantage. It is the price of entry, the minimum standard everyone meets. No one stands out, and everyone is easy to replace.
When the price of pulp increases by 50%, factories find themselves in a commodity trap with no options. They either absorb the entire cost increase into their profit margins or try to pass part of it onto the selling price and lose orders as customers switch to neighboring factories. This is not a theory. This is the situation hundreds of factories are facing right now.
A brand is a price lever
Marty Neumeier, author of the foundational brand book The Brand Gap, defines a brand as "a person's gut feeling about a product, service or organization of yours." This definition sounds abstract. But its business consequences are very concrete.
B2B customers often have a clear perception of a supplier. They know what type of packaging that factory specializes in, trust the quality of its technical capabilities, and have had good collaboration experiences. Therefore, switching to another supplier is no longer a simple matter. There are hidden costs: re-certification, running new trial batches, and retraining the purchasing operation team. These costs do not appear on the price quote, but experienced buyers are aware of them.
This is why a factory with a clear brand can negotiate a price adjustment when material costs rise without losing the order. It is not because they hold a monopoly. It is because customers already have a specific reason to stay, and the cost of leaving is high enough that "comparing prices from scratch" is no longer appealing.
Brands that are meaningful and differentiated help customers be willing to pay 38% more than average brands in the same industry.
Kantar BrandZ, ~2020
Specialized positioning: the path to escape pricing
No factory escapes the commodity trap by trying to do better within the same old positioning. Competing on "higher quality, still low price" is a race with no finish line, and no one wins it for long. The only way out is to narrow your focus and go deeper. Choose a specific customer segment and a specific type of packaging, then become the clearest choice in that segment.
For example, a factory specializing in food packaging that meets food safety standards, with an audited quality control process and complete technical documentation. Or a factory specializing in premium packaging for domestic cosmetics, with high-quality offset printing capabilities and structural design consulting. Both are serving different markets, with different purchasing criteria and willingness to pay different prices.
Niche positioning does not mean turning down orders outside your segment. It means your message, company profile, website and market approach all state clearly: "this is what we do best." When your target customers meet that message, comparing prices with a general carton workshop becomes meaningless, because you are not offering the same thing.
The capability profile is the first touchpoint in B2B
In B2B purchasing, the decision on the type of supplier often occurs before the first call. The purchasing manager visits the website, reads the catalog, and reviews the current client list. Then they evaluate whether this supplier should be included in the bidding list. If the website is outdated, the catalog lacks technical specifications, or there is no evidence of actual capabilities, many potential orders will disappear right at this stage. The factory will never know that it happened.
Stanford's research on web credibility shows that 75% of users assess the reliability of an organization through the quality of its website design. In the paper and packaging industry, customers are often medium and large enterprises with structured purchasing processes. Therefore, this figure has direct consequences: a weak capability profile means a meeting that never happens.
This is where B2B brands operate differently from consumer brands. There is no need for flashy advertising. What is needed is honest technical documentation, case studies with real data, and consistent branding from business cards to factory signs to sales emails. These things are not expensive but require a clear intention to execute correctly.
The green wave: opportunities are only valuable when narrated
The shift from plastic packaging to paper is creating genuinely new demand. Major retail chains such as WinMart, Go, Fujimart and AEON have already moved to biodegradable bags. According to industry survey data, 42.9% of businesses already use paper or carton packaging. This trend continues to grow under pressure from consumers and environmental regulation.
However, market opportunity does not turn into orders on its own. A workshop may hold sustainable material certifications, a production process that saves water and energy, or products that meet biodegradable standards. But if there is no systematic way to communicate this to the market, that capability has no commercial value. Customers do not know to ask.
Conversely, a factory that can clearly tell that sustainability story, with supporting evidence in its capability profile and website, will have a distinct advantage over a factory with similar capabilities but remains silent. Corporate customers are now required to justify their environmental goals to the global supply chain. Therefore, this is no longer a bonus point but is gradually becoming a prerequisite.
References
Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association (VPPA), import-export report 2025. Mordor Intelligence, Vietnam Packaging Market Report 2025. McKinsey, The Business Value of Design, 2018. Kantar BrandZ, 2020. Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap.