Several factors influence how customers perceive your brand and its packaging- one is your chosen design.
Product packaging boils down to how the product gets presented and how intimately it intertwines with customer perception.
It tells a story and sets the stage for how you want to show your entire brand.
Selecting a modern and clean look for packaging will leave a unique impression compared to one that uses a rustic, original design or beachy look.
Product packaging speaks volumes about your brand in a fraction of a second, with clients sometimes judging the quality or value of a product at just a glance.
The right packaging can let you sell more by standing out as an asset.
Packaging may appear minor, so many merchants overlook it until the last moment. However, packaging is essential to your service and marketing strategy, and you should not take it lightly.
This article seeks to guide you through choosing a robust packaging design to represent and help you maximize sales.
Table of Contents
What You Should Know Before Designing
Product packaging involves many factors: shape, size, visuals, colors, wrappings vs. boxes vs. bags, materials, and more. Before making any of these decisions, you must do some research.
You need to understand four key things that will impact your design significantly. These include:
- Your audience: Understanding your audience and what they want from a product in your industry is crucial to designing packaging that specifically appeals to them. For instance, many men do not naturally reach for something in a fancy pink bottle.
- Connotations you want to evoke: Consider your audience and what you want people to think about your brand. Natural, rustic packaging works well for organic skincare products when the brand emphasizes natural ingredients; it may not work if you try to represent your products as clinically crafted instead.
- Your established visual branding: if you already have a site, brand name, and logo, it is essential to choose packaging that works well with what you are already working to support rather than work against your brand.
- Trends and standards in the market: To find a standout design, you need to understand the rules and examine competitors’ activities. Sometimes, sticking with the status quo is a good thing—if consumers expect toilet detergent to be sold in bottles instead of laminated envelopes, you might want to reconsider.
Types of Product Packing
Depending on the kind of products you are dealing in and how you are getting them to the consumers, there are 3-main types of product packaging that you need to know, and they are as follows:
Product Packaging
The product itself must be packaged up to protect what you are selling. Think about the box for the jewelry, the candy bar wrapper, and the toilet detergent bottle you are selling.
The packaging includes hanging tags or labels that go into the products if applicable.
Product packaging ought to be the central focus. It is where you should start. Upon seeing it on the shelf, you want customers to grab your product, so aesthetics and functionality are vital here.
Outer Product Packaging
Say you want to ship products to clients; how will you do that? In boxes, envelopes, or something else?
Or you are distributing shelving boxes to sell candy bars to small local merchants or boutiques.
What do these boxes look like?
Outer product packaging- the box or packaging delivered crucially essential for shipping purposes.
Outer product packaging often includes branded envelopes, stickers, and mailing boxes. It gives your brand a more robust impression when the client sees the package in the mail.
Inner Product Packaging
Inner product packaging includes everything inside the outer envelope or box except the product itself.
It may consist of packing peanuts, shredded paper, mailer inserts to keep things in place, pamphlets, or instructional booklets.
The focus here is on practicality. For example, if you want to ship that glass bottle of lotion, how do you ensure it does not break? Wrapping it in a paper or cloth bag and then sticking it to the shredded paper can protect it.
When this packaging is branded, it has a uniform appearance. It makes your brand look established and professional.
It also lets you control the entire customer experience regarding how they receive your product.
Read Also: How To Edit Tags In Shopify Ecommerce Store
6 Things to Place on Your Packaging
There are 6-things you need to remember every single time you are designing your product packaging. They include:
- Product titles: The products’ name needs to appear on the packaging
- Copy explaining the product: A simple tagline or a small section on the label detailing what the product does,
- Instructions on how to use and care for the product should be detailed on the product itself. For example, tent gear may be suitable only for specific weather conditions, and clothing may be hand-washed.
- Imagery: it includes the brand logo and anything particular to the product itself that your design has come up with
- Required info like nutrition labels, bar codes, or safety labels: some locations and industries require this information, subject to your selling products. Cross-check to find out what you need to place on your packaging.
- As required info-batch numbers: however, the obviousness of changing numbers ensures that there is a place on the packaging for batch numbers,
Designing eCommerce Packaging
There are six critical step-by-step processes for designing eCommerce packaging. Consider the following:
Do Your Research
As this post already alluded, it would help if you did your research upfront. You need to know what is happening in the marketplace, your audience, and what you want the packaging to say about the product.
Competitors and the market are critical, and developing audience personas for each product will be helpful. Packaging and branding go hand in hand.
Choose Your Product Container Type
You must decide what type of product container you may need, and the various options for product packaging are:
- Bottles
- Cans
- Glass jars
- Boxes
- Wrappers
- Cardboard tubes
- Cartons
- Laminated envelopes
- Your selection should meet all the following criteria:
- It aligns with users expectations in case an industry’s standards are in place
- It is functional
- It ships well
- It looks great
Decide What You Need
While considering how your product will get from your store to the client on an aesthetic and practical level, you realize you need a shipping container, like a box or mailer envelope.
But what else will ensure that everything arrives looking excellent and with the product protected so the customer has the best experience possible?
In addition to the branded shipping box, you may need to purchase branded packing tape,
You may have standard kits that could easily benefit from a custom mailer insert, but you realize you want shredded paper or packing peanuts to ensure your product gets to the customer safely.
Consider all these. Moving forward is essential. Make sure to make a list of everything you need.
Design the Packaging
Hiring a professional to design the inner and outer packaging packaging can be a one-time cost.
At this stage, specify what imagery, color scheme, and overall aesthetic you are going for. It is vital to ensure that it is clear what your product is so that if a customer sees it on a shelf, they will not be left scratching their head.
Remember to include everything needed on the packaging, including safety information and batch numbers. Forgetting the first time means starting from scratch and paying for a do-over.
To streamline the process, tell the printing company offering packaging services what you want. They can handle the more high-tech planning on your behalf.
Get Feedback
The designer will send you the design upon completion for your approval.
Please review it carefully, cross-check all the copies, ensure the plan is as you envisioned, and make any necessary changes.
Once you have the future designs, get feedback.
Ask friends whose design tastes you trust or peers experienced in the eCommerce or retail industry.
Obtaining the opinion of your target audience is even more critical. Their opinion matters a lot as regards the time of product purchase.
Start The Printing Process
Once packaging is created, all that is left to do is get the printing underway. Depending on what you need, the following options are all suitable choices:
- Sticker mule-for product packaging labels meant for external packaging like jars or boxes.
- UPrinting and Packlane-meant for custom designs, including mailer boxes, shipping boxes, and product boxes
- PrintingForLess-caters for all ranging from the gift card holder, hangtag, candy wrappers, belly bands, inserts, and folding
- Lumi-meant for tissue paper, laminated pouches. Envelope sleeves, cotton bags, and tape.
- Several printers let you have a prototype made before ordering a whole batch — leverage this feature to ensure that everything is perfect.
Fantastic Examples of eCommerce Packaging Designs
These incredible e-commerce packaging designs are bound to inspire you. They are versatile, easily adapted to your brand, and inexpensive.
Skinfood by AB
It is an Etsy shop selling organic, handmade, natural beauty products. Its exceptional packaging partly landed it a deal with big names like Whole Foods.
However, Skinfood by AB has gorgeous packaging that gives the shop an established feel. The clean white labels are distinct, with the branded name at the top and the product’s name underneath.
The shop uses branded tape around the outside of their shipping boxes and shredded brown paper to keep them safe and protected, as opposed to plastics or Styrofoam. Skinfood by Ab also uses ”natural” ingredients that align with the brand,
2.Rookin’Green
Rookin’ Green’s detergent is in powder form rather than liquid, so its packaging would also be different. They use plastic bags with a small scoop inside.
Additionally, the product packaging is clean and tells clients precisely what each item is. There are ”90 loads” in bright green text at the top right corner and feature ”Active Wear” in big, bold letters.
Rookin’Green also explains why the product is excellent and contains none of the bad stuff. It is a robust retail packaging whether or not you are selling online.
3. who Gives a Crap
Who Give a Crap is the stop shop for examples of creative product packaging for your products. Look no further. The brand deals in recycled paper products, including tissue paper, towels, and toilet paper. Their copy is on point and highly entertaining, as reflected in their packaging.
Each product is wrapped in bright tissue paper with bold, fun prints. Noteworthy, though, is their innovative packaging for the shipping containers.
The duplicate fun copy that possibly got customers purchasing in the first place is all across the site, down to the description- what the batch number on the box is and why you need it.
It is entertaining and makes the -unboxing an active aspect of the sales and client engagement process.
Summary
The product packaging design process is involved and should not be taken lightly. It can make or break your brand; therefore, you must decide strategically.
The best packaging balances visual appeal and cost-effectiveness while remaining true to your audience’s expectations and brand.
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