Good packaging serves to inspire and tempt the buyer and absolutely affects your bottom line. It plays a vital role in the marketing of your products. Packaging should appeal to the senses, inform the buyer and be highly functional. Packaging will help to set your product apart as well as creating and strengthening the identity of your brand. Packaging is an important part of the marketing mix and should be the result of clever planning and sound research into consumer motivation, colours and sensory manipulation. You can click here for professional advice in packaging.
As shopping becomes increasingly a self-service activity, the role of packaging grows in importance. Supermarket shopping involves shoppers walking past rows and rows of similar products, making packaging a supremely important point of purchase device. It is estimated that the average grocery shopper will pass around 600 products every minute of shopping; price, positioning and packaging will directly affect the choices made by the shopper.
Attention Grabber
One of the most important functions of packaging is to grab the consumer’s attention. Packaging can help your product to stand out on a crowded shelf. Many shoppers complain about being bored by a sea of similar packaging which makes choice really difficult. A product with standout packaging will often compete very well against its mediocre counterparts.
Looking Good
Consumers like nicely designed and decorated packaging. In good packaging, colour, design and shape all work together to create an overall package that is pleasing to the eye. Well considered design is appreciated by consumers. Of course packaging needs to be designed with your market in mind. Bright colours work well for children, while cosmetics need to be packaged beautifully.
Functionality
Packaging should serve the function for which it was created; it should protect the product inside. Packaging needs to protect the integrity of the hygiene and aroma of the product as well as ensuring the product is not tampered with. If it is important to see the product inside the packaging, windows need to be added. Packaging also needs to be easy to store and handle.
Inform your Audience
Another important function of packaging is to inform consumers. Good packaging should contain important information about your product as well as appealing marketing statements. Packaging is the best way to inform your audience at the point of sale. Good packaging is basically a POS billboard.
Appeal to the Senses
Packaging can also help appeal to the senses of consumers thereby attracting attention and stimulating interest in purchasing the product. The more senses packaging appeals to the better, for example clever packaging will feel good to touch and it may carry a nicely perfumed scent. Multisensory packaging is the latest in packaging trends.
Good for Reuse
As sustainability becomes increasingly important to consumers it is becoming more desirable to buy packaging that can be reused. For example, a tin used to package biscuits may be reused later to store flour in the pantry or as a pen container on the desk.