Crafting your Packaging Strategy to Provide a Competitive Marketing Advantage in e-commerce
What is product packaging?
Product packaging involves enclosing a product in a package for storage, distribution, or sale. But besides protecting the product from damage and making it easy to transport, a product's packaging, when designed and crafted correctly, can heavily influence a customer's decision to buy a product.
A branded packing experience includes a careful selection of shipping and packaging materials, as well as how you showcase your transported items. Its goal is to give value to your consumer and your company by generating a favorable first impression of your brand identity—ideally, one that is both memorable and shareable.
What is e-commerce packaging?
E-commerce packaging refers to the materials you employ to secure your product in transportation while establishing a distinct brand identity. While the packaging is sometimes overlooked in e-commerce, the design you pick has an influence on everything from your delivery costs to your digital marketing campaign. Choosing the finest e-commerce packaging for your company is critical to establishing a great client experience that will help your business expand.
In this article, we'll go through some excellent e-commerce package designs and concepts, including all the practical advice and examples you'll need to convey a captivating story about your business.
How to create a custom packaging strategy to gain that competitive edge?
Choosing the right design or even re-designing your product packaging can minimize packaging costs by 20 to 40%, a component that generally accounts for 10 to 20% of the overall product cost in your e-commerce businesses.
For instance, if you use corrugated cartons for your products, you should consider switching to plastic totes. This will reduce cost of packaging by at least 15% and save space, transportation, and storage costs.
Alternatively, when designing a box or container, ensure that it is not larger than necessary and is appropriately shaped to fit the product being packaged. Where possible, avoid sharp corners and design easy-to-open packages. This will increase productivity by reducing the time required for packaging and repackaging.
Incorporate the supply chain and shipping process in designing your packaging
Your top aim is to create designs that are functional. Otherwise, the incorrect packaging will cost you money at every stage of your supply chain.
You should right-size all containers in e-commerce. Customize boxes for specific items and increase delivery efficiency. Smaller boxes with less headroom decrease product movement, save money on materials and minimize shipping damage. Remove inserts as much as possible, and create sturdy, six-sided containers without unsealed open edges, glue flaps, staples, or locking tabs.
Right-sized packaging also takes up less space and weighs less, benefiting your warehouses and shippers like FedEx, UPS, the US Postal Service, and online merchants. As their processing and shipping facilities become increasingly overburdened with orders, packaging that meets their increasingly stringent requirements will become a requirement you'll have to follow if you want your orders shipped quickly and without upcharges, for noncompliance to avoid non-delivery.
Carton size, weight, labeling, product-to-package ratios, and artwork are examples of such criteria. Suppliers, shippers, and online sellers want goods to pass through their computers smoothly. Adopting prep-free packaging (PFP) can be beneficial as it requires no labeling or tape and minimal handling box for delivery. Create ship-in-own containers (SIOCs) so that your items are sent to clients in the same boxes e-tailers receive, with no over-boxing required.
Simplifying design also facilitates easy collaboration with packaging vendors. Because the epidemic has limited these suppliers' capacity, reducing complexity can help prevent stockouts.
One solution is to use a single-size bottle of lotion, for example. The lotion might come in five different kinds, identified by labeling.
However, instead of having several bottles for each flavor, smell, and size, you specify only one, reducing supply risk, SKUs, handling, and expenses. It also lowers the need for auxiliary components like lids and pumps, adding predictability to the equation.
Design your packaging to differentiate you from your competitors
E-commerce packaging with a company logo is a great way to get people to recognize your brand and correlate it favorably with other positive connotations, like attention for the customer or high-quality merchandise.
E-commerce packaging may benefit significantly from creativity and elegance; this, along with all the other criteria, is considered from the beginning of a well-designed product that attracts new customers.
By showcasing the unboxing experience, customers may expect when they make an order with you, you can entice them to purchase from you. Branded packaging is a compelling Unique Selling Proposition (USP) since it demonstrates that you're not like other e-commerce firms, which could send their products in a plain cardboard box.
Choose Practical and Sustainable Raw Materials
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Now is a great time to create and use environmentally friendly packaging. Utilize 100% curbside recyclable materials, and use as little material in general as feasible in your designs to promote customer loyalty.
Make the eco-friendliness of your product clear on the packaging, your website, and in the promotion. Indeed, by demonstrating that your firm cares about the environment, your sustainable packaging becomes a powerful economic driver during and after the epidemic.
According to a 2022 Dotcom Distribution survey,
- Two in three online shoppers cite eco-friendly packaging (Post Consumer Recycled materials, sustainable ink, etc.) as the environmental factor most likely to make them shop with a brand.
- 69% consider sustainable packaging when shopping with a brand
Some gain a competitive advantage simply by using ecofriendly, biodegradable raw materials in their packaging, such as:
- Corn starch packaging is a preferred alternative to polystyrene and bubble wraps, often used in e-commerce packaging. The required raw material is sustainable, renewable, and simple to create. There was not a single harmful chemical or poison to be detected.
- Kraft paper is an excellent packaging option for plastic. It is more robust and durable and contains fewer chemicals than standard paper. This material is also fully biodegradable.
- Corrispring insert is the industry-leading protective cushioning system made entirely of corrugated fiberboard and from 100% recyclable corrugated material. As a result, Corrispring is a more ecologically friendly product than standard foam cushion packing and a less expensive solution than typically used foam packaging materials.
Address viral safety issues
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Have you observed some buyers receiving their shipping boxes leave their purchase at the front door for at least 24 hours before opening it? Many individuals are doing this and taking additional precautions, such as wearing latex gloves to open parcels or washing them down with antibacterial tissues or alcohol, since they are concerned that anything they bought may unwittingly carry COVID-19 into their homes from a merchant or during transportation.
Consider including virus protection in your e-commerce packaging to give your customers peace of mind.
Include exterior containers that are easy to open and dispose of before a product is utilized or stored in a cabinet. Incorporate anti-viral substances into the product packaging. Many anti-viral materials are presently being developed that can reject viruses that come into touch with them. Food-grade polymers and biopolymers can be used in packaging or on the food itself (if it is an edible coating) to impart active antibacterial qualities to food items.
Make careful to highlight the anti-viral products you use—this might be another difference in the market now and after COVID-19. Some of the materials discussed above were intended to reject various viruses and pollutants (not only the coronavirus)—another factor that can boost customer trust. Also, advertise internal sanitation practices and certifications, your company's employee safety policy, and any philanthropic contributions you're making to COVID-19 relief projects and frontline worker assistance.
The Bottomline
Many things are competing for your customer's attention in this age of online selling. The perception of your packaging design by your customers might eventually assist you in developing your brand and expanding your business.
E-commerce packaging does more than preserve a product; it also serves as an essential marketing tool, supporting branding, promoting your product's most significant characteristics, and assisting a company in attracting customers. Overall, it provides the consumer with an unforgettable experience.
Keep in mind that your packaging must ultimately be feasible for your product—artistically and financially. If the box's personality does not match your product's personality, you risk confusing customers. If, on the other hand, your packing is both unique and efficient, you have given customers even another incentive to consider what you're selling.
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