Packaging Guide for Start-Ups

The challenges for start-ups can be numerous. One of the challenges to talk about in this regard is the packaging of products. One thing that you have to keep in mind here is that product packaging is the very factor which impacts the business in positive or negative manner. In other words, it is not all about the safety of your product the packaging is all about. Branding or advertising is also pretty much associated with the packaging of your products in today’s world.

Keeping the prices under control

The cost of packaging is one of the most important concerns for start-ups for obvious reasons. Now, if you are going for the fancy packaging, you may be able to make your product quite capable of building a temptation. But it is also the fact that fancier packaging increases the cost per package, leading to the low profitability with every product shipped. On the other hand, going for the low quality packaging materials and low cost packaging options may seem to add much in terms of profitability but they can lead to damaged products during the shipping process. And your business reputation will not be very good if you become famous for delivering damaged products to your customers. Therefore, it is quite important to make sure that you create a balance to keep the costs lower but ensure necessary protection to your product to keep it safe during the shipping process.

Packaging needs to represent your products

Are you an online retailer or your product has to sit on the store’s shelves in order to get sold? The reason for asking this question is that the packaging of your product has everything to do with the type of business you are doing in this regard. If you are an online retailer, you have to make sure that the outer packaging of your product represents your brand in the better way. Moreover, there should be adequate packaging supplies used for the protection of your product.

On the other hand, you will have to pay special attention to the design of your product package if your product needs to be on the shelves of grocery or any other stores.

Another point that you have to keep in mind here is that you need to be careful about the use of packaging supplies. If your product is not a fragile one and it doesn’t require much of the packaging supplies, you need to make sure that you are not adding those supplies unnecessarily. You don’t want your customers to be frustrated while having to deal with the supplies which would contribute to increase the packaging wastes.

Advantages of Flexible Packaging for E-Commerce Shipping

The trend of online shopping never seems to stop. As a matter of fact, most of the offline shipping stores are now shifting their focus on selling online. In this scenario, the customers are more concerned about the arrival of packages in good condition. Therefore, it remains highly important for brands to make sure that they use high quality packaging materials to ensure packages’ safety during the supply chain.

When you have to deal with the ecommerce shipping and you need to make sure that the packaging process is up to the mark, you can consider going for the flexible packaging. The flexible packaging is lightweight and it helps in reducing the transportation costs. This is due to the fact that more product packages can be stacked or placed in an area.

According to the survey, manufacturers are focusing more on flexible packaging. A few things related to flexible packaging for e-commerce shipping are worth mentioning in this regard.

Shipping durability and branding

The branding requirements for e-commerce stores and brick-and-mortar stores are different. E-commerce customers cannot see the actual product when it arrives at their doorstep. So design and colors don’t really matter in this regard. All they care about is the product safety.

Manufacturers who ship their products to e-commerce customers mainly look at the trends in the use of flexible packaging. Their main focus is to make sure that the product remains fresh and safe while being shipped.

E-commerce packaging requirements

Amazon and other online retailers require manufacturers to meet specific flexible packaging standards. The flexible packaging needs to be capable of meeting parcel shipping process which is very harsh for the product packages. It doesn’t mean that they subject their packages to such harsh treatments. They just want to make sure that the package remains safe during the transit.

New channel for flexible packaging

Although 42% of the companies do not have specific flexible packaging systems in place, they agree on the fact that there must be a dedicated channel to help manufacturers in adopting flexible packaging as a default procedure for ecommerce shipping.

Since many of the manufacturers are in early stages of implementing flexible packaging for e-commerce, they usually wonder which products should be packaged using flexible packaging and which products need to be packed in rigid and hard containers. The new channels can help those manufacturers make those decisions without any hiccup.

Consumer Trends to Look At While Creating Packaging Design

Consumers are the only reason companies sell their products and services. This statement about consumers is pretty obvious without a doubt but it is something which the companies need to keep in mind during every phase related to production and packaging of products. Most of the companies do fair amount research in order to produce the product with the quality desired by customers but they often forget about the role of packaging. It means that you have to take consumers’ trends in consideration while creating a product packaging design.

It would be worth mentioning a few consumer trends in this regard.

Healthy lifestyle

Since people are getting increasingly concerned about their health, it is important for the food manufacturing companies to display complete lists of natural ingredients on product labels. Moreover, the chemical names of the ingredients should be displayed rather than their code numbers. Respecting the healthy trends through your packaging can be a sale booster.

Convenience in food packaging

Although consumers have started preferring healthy foods and they want the food packages to promise a healthy food packaged inside them, it doesn’t mean that convenience is no longer in play. The customers like to deal with the food packaging which is easy to handle.

Shopping online

Since this is the age of online shopping, you have to make sure that your product has an amazing ecommerce design. Moreover, you will have to pay attention to the product labels. The product labels should be the same throughout the products in the store.

Digitization

Without digitizing, you cannot survive in this age of ecommerce. For this purpose, you will need to digitize the designs of your product packages. This essential digitization will help you go viral. The most considerable advantage of this digitization is that you will be able to battle counterfeit product in an effective manner.

Smaller packaging

The abundance of items required in a home has made it difficult for the customers to keep necessary items organized due to space issues. This is the major reason that companies are now shifting their focus on preparing small packages which are easy to stack anywhere in the shelves and other places in the home. In other words, the day of larger boxes and cartons are going to be over soon.

About Packaging Trends In 2019

Packaging has turned into a complete industry as the game is not just about the product safety now. There are several other factors which need to be considered when it comes to packaging of products.

In this scenario, it would be worth mentioning a few packaging trends.

Connected packaging

You may wonder about the term connected packaging. The world is moving towards connectivity in every aspect of life; and this trend of connectivity is also influencing the packaging industry. You may have heard about the concept ‘Internet of Things’. This concept is fully utilized in the packaging industry. Moreover, the packaging operations are now being managed online. The technologies being used in connected packaging mainly include QR codes, Near Field Communication (NFC), radio frequency identification tags (RFID), Bluetooth, and augmented reality (AR). Connected packaging doesn’t only make packaging operations faster but it also makes it very easy to take care of product safety and branding factor while packaging of the products.

Recyclable packaging materials

With customers getting more conscious about the climate and environment, and demand for the use of recyclable materials in packaging process has increased quite drastically. Although the quicker employment of recyclable materials for certain industries, e.g. foods, doesn’t seem a reality, things are certainly heading towards the scenario when it will become a vital requirement for the food packaging industries to use recyclable and sustainable packaging materials.

Reinvention of the boxes

In this era, one of the major developments seems to be the boom in e-commerce industry. More people now seem to log in online and order products and services. It means that manufacturing units have to dispatch more shipments to meet the consumer demands. In which scenario, it has become very important for the packaging and shipments to represent brands. Moreover, this increase in demand seems to have greater impact on technologies, business, supply chain, and packaging design.

Plastic free packaging

Use of plastic in packaging has led to the generation of huge amount of plastic waste. This is the reason that strategies are being made to reduce the use of plastic in the product packaging process. The best solution for this issue is the use of sustainable packaging options which may or may not use plastic but it is the fact that this packaging method can reduce packaging waste quite drastically.

One thing worth mentioning here is that plastic free doesn’t mean complete elimination of plastic from the packaging process. It is rather concerned with the addition of other materials to make the packaging more sustainable and recyclable.