While the quality of your products is no doubt important to good business, you can’t deny the influence of good packaging. Investing in custom packing for a small business is an essential element to setting your brand apart from competitors, conveying value, and attracting new customers.

Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store, work entirely in e-commerce, or utilize both, custom business packaging can accomplish a lot for your brand. Here are some of the benefits of product packaging:

1. Save Money on Your Boxes

When it comes to shipping, there are several boxes you can choose from. However, these boxes may not be the appropriate size for your product. In the process, you end up wasting money on boxes that are too large and extra packaging materials needed to keep your product safe when small packaging options would be a better fit. With custom product packaging, you save expenses while having the perfect fit for your product.

2. Boost Sales

Your packaging does a lot of things for your company, not the least of which is giving a boost to your sales by enhancing the company’s overall appeal. When your packaging looks attractive, people are more likely to make repeat purchases and successive orders.

On the flip side, poor packaging can lead to dramatic drops in sales, as there’s nothing to make the product appealing or recognizable to a buyer. Even if the product itself doesn’t change, changing the box or bag it comes in can lead to different customer responses.

3. Build Brand Awareness

Any box or bag will cross several different people in the process of arriving to its destination, whether that be the postal service staff or people who notice a bag while walking through a shopping center. The exact amount of exposure will vary depending on the delivery route and customer’s use of the bag, but there’s still extensive potential in putting your brand logo on display through your packaging.

Customized small business packaging also makes the experience of making a purchase more personal. Plain brown boxes and bags can’t accomplish that. Customizing the design of your business packaging boxes, in addition to the size, is a smart strategy – and it doesn’t cost as much as you may think.

4. Increase the Perceived Quality of Your Product

A box or bag doesn’t need to be expensive to look good. A few simple stylistic adjustments can give even a plain box a high-end feel. When the quality of your packaging is high, customers feel like they’ve received a quality product from a retailer that cares.

5. Provide Additional Marketing

Printing custom bags and boxes does cost more than a simple model. However, your packaging can also serve as a great marketing tool. Not only do you gain brand awareness through recognizable designs, the social media and unboxing culture have made unpacking orders and sharing purchases online much more popular.

Customers are much more likely to share photos of packaging that they find appealing. When your box and bag designs encourage this behavior, you’re earning social media and word of mouth exposure with no additional effort on your part. When you compare the costs of traditional marketing and advertising efforts, the expense of creating a custom design is more than worth it.

6. Inform Your Customer

While you’re working on your custom packaging’s design, you can consider how to include important information for your customers. Include your website and relevant contact information. You may also put information on how to reorder in the design as well. Not only will this benefit your current customers, it’ll also help you connect to new ones that may come across your packaging.

7. Benefit the Environment

If eco-friendly services are important to your brand, or you just want to do your part toward protecting the planet, custom packaging is an open opportunity to invest in recyclable or reusable materials. Investing in a sustainable box or printing reusable brand tote bags are an excellent way to pursue green practices.

Additionally, almost half of global consumers make purchasing decisions based on whether a brand offers environmentally and socially conscious packaging options. Besides benefitting the Earth, you also gain a marketing edge when you make your customized boxes and bags eco-friendly.

8. Add a Personalized Touch for Customers

Packaging goes beyond the boxes, bags, and any other materials necessary to safely get your products into the hands of your customers. It can also incorporate the little extras included with an order. Even something as simple as a “thank you” card, or a small brand sticker can brighten the purchasing experience considerably.

These features are especially important for e-commerce businesses that don’t always get to connect with their customers in a person-to-person environment. Customers who order online already know what they’re going to get when that package arrives in the mail – adding extras can add an element of surprise and delight.

9. Inject a Touch of Brand Personality

While you’re thinking of using your packaging to build brand awareness, you can also enhance your brand’s image in your packaging. If your business incorporates a bit of humor, include these statements on your boxes, bags, and even packing tape. These make for great social media fodder, plus they make the unpacking experience even more enjoyable for customers.

The key to this approach is to make sure your packaging reflects your established brand. Just like you want to make your marketing and branding efforts uniform across the web, apply the same rules to your packaging. Incongruent boxes and bags can lead to brand confusion in your customer base.

Wrapping Up

You already know that branding is important to your business. To achieve success with small business product packaging, you should treat it as part of your brand and marketing efforts. The investment when it comes to increasing and retaining your customer base is well worth the initial cost, and smart packing decisions may even help you save some money over using generic boxes.

Both online and in-store businesses have much to gain from customized boxes and bags. As packaging has become an integral part of the shopping experience, you should make implementing customized packages a part of your strategy. In the end, it’s a win for both customers and your business.

Sources:
www.wisconsinpackaging.com/blog/?ID=4&t=4+Reasons+Why+You+Should+Use+Custom+Shipping+Boxes
www.inc.com/joshua-conran/why-your-product-s-packaging-is-as-important-as-the-product-itself.html
www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/press-room/2014/global-consumers-are-willing-to-put-their-money-where-their-heart-is.html
www.shopify.com/retail/the-power-of-retail-packaging-why-branded-bags-and-mailers-are-worth-the-investment