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Designing a good product is paramount, but your packaging is not just what your product comes in, it is part of the product that you’re selling, as well. It’s an essential part of what makes your product stand out and, of course, plays a huge role in sustaining not just the brand associated with the product, but the integrity of the products within. If you want to attain excellence with your product, then you need to think about how your customers first encounter it. Here are a few of the factors you should be thinking about when choosing packaging that fits the product.
Work out your budget
First of all, you need to think about how the packaging is going to fit into the financial equation of creating and selling your product. How much is it going to cost to produce the packaging and to package each product? How much of the costs are you willing to pass on to your customers, and what do you need to charge to sell for a profit depending on your choice of packaging? Depending on the audience that you’re targeting, which should always be one of the primary concerns when making any changes to your products, you might be able to get away with charging a premium. Some people expect to pay for quality, and this can include quality packaging. At other times, you need to be able to keep costs as light as possible to ensure sales keep coming in.
Where is the packaging done?
It’s not just how you package your products that is worth considering, but where the packaging is done. If you manufacture your own products, then you might want to look at the prospect of bringing the packaging process into your manufacturing floor as well. However, otherwise, you could consider outsourcing it. There are fulfillment service providers that may also take on the labor of packaging your products for you. When you outsource, you gain immediate access to the scope you need to take care of those needs, but you do also lose the flexibility of being able to change the process to suit your needs. What’s more, taking your process in-house, while initially more expensive, is likely to pay itself off over time and to be the more affordable solution in the long term. Of course, if you have the packaging done elsewhere, then you also need to consider how this adds extra strain to your logistics and how you’re going to handle that strain. It may mean having to pay more for moving products and materials from point A to point B.
Make sure the materials are resilient
The first thing that you typically have to consider about the actual packaging itself is the material that it’s going to be made of. There are all types of packaging materials, such as plastic, cardboard, paperboard, metal, bio-plastics, and much more, and each of them brings its pros and cons. One of the first things to think about is how resilient and strong the packaging is. Is it going to make it to the customer in one piece, and is it going to maintain the integrity of the product itself? For food or medicine products, for instance, you need the material itself to be highly resilient, and also to have a seal that will ensure the product is not interfered with before it reaches the consumer.
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Consider sustainability
Given that the news of how industrialization has affected and continues to affect the environment is repeated on a near-daily basis, it should be no surprise that more and more people want to make sure that they’re consuming in a way that is ethical and responsible. You might have already done some work to ensure that your products are sustainable, where possible, but you should be doubly sure to secure the same for your packaging. After all, in most cases, the packaging is there to deliver the product and then be discarded, so choosing materials that are reusable, recyclable, or made from recycled or renewable materials can reduce the amount of waste that goes into each product.
Does it transport well?
As mentioned, an important part of your packaging is that it’s able to get from A to B safely and securely. The choice of materials and their resilience, especially when they are being transported, is going to play a major role in this. If you’re only transporting your products across town, then you might not need to invest in the most resilient material, but if they’re going to be on the road for a day or more, then you need to rethink that. Similarly, how the package is shaped will determine how much of it can be stored in a given space. For more fragile products, packaging needs to include space and features that reduce impact and movement as best as possible.
Does it communicate the product well?
Packaging isn’t just the physical shape and materials of the package, of course, it’s also the labeling that comes with it. There’s a lot to think about regarding your labeling, as well, but the most important thing is that your consumers are able to identify what the product is by glancing at it. If your product uses any kind of generic packaging type that does not show the product within (i.e., not transparent or partial packaging), then pictures of the product in use, or images that imply the usage of the product are vital. You have to make sure that you also leave enough space to communicate the necessary information, be it descriptions of the product, ingredients, instructions for usage, or otherwise.
Photo Credit – Pixabay License
Do you have industry standards to meet?
In some cases, when it comes to things like communicating the appropriate information or making sure that there are security and safety measures in place to keep the product intact and without contamination, there may be standards relevant to your industry. This can make choosing the right packaging a little easier because you have a set series of instructions to follow, but finding the packaging that meets those standards is its own task. Usually, you want to work with those that have experience in meeting those standards, like a pharmaceutical packaging company or a food packaging company. Just make sure that you keep up to date with the regulations regarding your products and packaging so that you don’t end up unintentionally
Is it easy to use or open?
While your packaging should provide a protective barrier to ensure the integrity and safety of your product, it shouldn’t be a barrier between your product and the intended audience. You need to think about how the average person within your target audience is going to open or use the packaging and ensure that it’s easy enough for them. Products designed to be used by older people may, for instance, require that they’re a little easier to open than usual. Similarly, you should consider accessibility for people with disabilities. But you also need to consider childproofing, especially for products that are potentially hazardous to children, such as medication and household cleaning products. This is when you need to look at the various childproof safety features you can include on your packaging.
Does your brand come across?
Your packaging isn’t just a purely practical matter, either. It’s also very much part of the brand that it supposed to help you sell the product. As such, you have to consider what labeling space you can use for branding, and how you communicate it. For some products, the logo is more than enough to do that, but that usually depends on a sustained campaign of building the kind of familiarity and recognition that not every brand can muster. You have to consider every element of branding to make sure you get the right mix of style and communicability. This includes the right wording, colors, fonts, and imagery, and using the shape and material of the packaging to your advantage. They can be as much a part of the ease with which you recognize the product as anything.
Does it stand out?
There are all kinds of product testing that you should be carrying out on your products. However, you can test how the product packaging fares in helping it get recognized and noticed in stores as well. This typically involves having consumers go into test retail environments, designed to look as much like the real thing as possible. They are then given instructions to choose certain kinds of products, without being told which product is being tested. Then, you can check to see which products they spent more time looking at, as well as which of them immediately got their attention.
For some products, the packaging that you choose is going to be all about finding the right qualities to adhere to. With others, you can have more freedom, which means you need to know what you’re looking for, using the tips above.
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