Packaging Corporation of America makes containerboard and corrugated packaging products, including cardboard boxes used by manufacturers and retailers to ship and protect goods throughout the supply chain. Its products are essential to how physical goods move through the economy, since virtually any product that gets shipped or sold at retail requires some form of protective packaging, giving the company steady underlying demand tied to broader shipping and retail activity. Packaging Corporation operates a vertically integrated business, both manufacturing the containerboard raw material and converting it into finished corrugated packaging products, capturing margin at multiple stages of the packaging supply chain. The company's revenue and profitability are tied to overall industrial production, e-commerce shipping volumes and broader economic activity, since packaging demand tends to track how much product volume is being manufactured and shipped across its many customer industries.