Many e-commerce vendors may regard product packaging as an afterthought, if they consider it at all. However, this can be a costly mistake. Regardless of whether you run a brick-and-mortar store or sell your products exclusively online, the way you present it to the world can be a powerful marketing tool, especially when you work with an innovative flexible packaging company.
1. Creating a Memorable Experience
The responses that customers have to your merchandise, especially from a psychological or sensory point of view, are referred to collectively as the “product experience.” Packaging can have either a positive or negative effect on the product experience.
This is especially true of perishable items. If your product is stale by the time your customer receives it, that is obviously going to have a negative impact on the product experience. Packaging should be designed to keep the product fresh. A good example of this is a coffee bag with vfollowalve that lets carbon dioxide out but doesn’t allow oxygen in.
2. Building Trust With Customers
This goes hand-in-hand with creating a good product experience. Not only does a good experience have a positive impact on customers at the moment, but they will remember the positive experience they had with your product and want to repeat it. They recollect your company as one that delivers on its promises.
To return to the coffee example: Caffeholics have probably had many disappointing experiences buying products that were stale. They remember these and stay away from them. The smart coffee packaging company includes a degassing valve so the product arrives fresh. The coffee lover appreciates it, remembers it, and returns to the same company when it is time to replenish supplies. Ideally, the experience is so positive that coffee lovers recommend the product to their caffe-holic friends.
3. Better Value for Gifts
When your customers buy your products to give as gifts to others, they want to demonstrate how much they care about the gift recipient. Packaging that is unattractive, damaged, or just too plain suggests the opposite, that the gift-giver didn’t put much thought or effort into the gift at all. Attractive packaging makes a better gift, especially if the gift-giver is having it shipped to the recipient directly but you are unable to offer a gift-wrap option.
4. Greater Impact on Social Media
When people purchase a new product that they are excited about, they may post pictures or videos of it on social media. This free exposure is valuable marketing for you, but if your packaging is not attractive in eye-catching, the impact is likely to be negligible.
In fact, there is a whole genre of video content called “unboxing” in which consumers purchase products and then open them on camera, discussing their features in great detail. You want to give them something to talk about by making your packaging unique and memorable.
5. Extending Your Story
Increasingly, it is as much the story behind you, your company, and your product that people are buying as the product itself. Packaging gives you an opportunity to communicate a message to the consumer.
Use it to say something important.
Meg is an author at Cinnamon Hollow. She writes on a variety of topics sharing tips and ideas for daily life.