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Does your product packaging benefit your customers and your e-commerce company? Here are tips on choosing the right packaging for an e-commerce business.

The Importance of Product Packaging

So why does packaging matter for e-commerce businesses? Product packaging protects your products before, during, and after transit, providing additional marketing and advertisement to your business. This can help bring in new customers, acting as an essential, brand-boosting experience and creating a make-or-break first impression for customers.

Furthermore, e-commerce packaging provides customers with additional physical engagement and a positive experience with your brand. When you design it well, it can contribute to a memorable shopping experience and lower product return rates. This helps your brand stand out from the competition and makes customers feel cared for. Packaging is the first and last interaction your customers have with your brand.

Benefits of Packaging for Businesses

Product packaging offers many benefits to your brand and your customer base. So here’s how it can create brand awareness, increase product safety, and improve the customer experience.

Creates Brand Awareness

Brand awareness refers to how familiar your target audience is with your business and brand and how easily they can recognize it. Many companies go out of their way to create memorable logos and brand designs that leave a lasting impression on customers. As such, your e-commerce packaging creates the ideal opportunity to show off your brand and its message.

Take the opportunity to create branded e-commerce packaging by making customer packaging that includes your brand’s main colors or by printing your logo onto the box. Branded e-commerce packaging develops customer loyalty and helps build brand awareness. The level of detail and customer care can lead to a positive customer experience, likely leading people to leave positive reviews or promote your business through word-of-mouth.

Improves Customer Experience

Many customers prefer to shop with e-commerce businesses instead of going to local shops due to the convenience they offer. However, packaging plays a crucial role in the user experience, as it must preserve the brand’s product from the moment a customer orders it to when it reaches their door. It’s a key part of making the online shopping experience pleasant and relaxing.

Upon arrival, customers' first impression of your brand is your packaging. It gives them an idea of what to expect from your brand, so choosing the right packaging is crucial for making a lasting impression. If your customer has difficulty opening your package or it arrives damaged, you can lose your customer’s trust. Furthermore, poorly designed packaging can create a negative reputation for your brand.

Increases Product Safety

Product packaging should reflect your design capabilities and ability to draw the eye of customers and properly preserve the products they ordered. Poor-quality product packaging can create a frustrating experience for customers, especially when the product they ordered arrives damaged or broken. As such, high-quality e-commerce packaging should protect the things they contain during transit.

High-quality product packaging should provide exceptional protection before, during, and after shipping and handling. If your business offers highly fragile products or delicate items, it needs strong product packaging to deliver them safely and gain a customer’s trust. So, by providing sturdy, protective packaging, you can keep products preserved and increase customers’ impression of your business.

Choosing the Right Product Packaging

Choosing the right product packaging for your e-commerce business matters tremendously for customer retention, brand awareness, and business reputation. Here are various tips for choosing packaging to increase profits and product preservation.

Know the Types of E-Commerce Packaging

The type of product packaging you choose for your e-commerce business depends on the products you provide. There are a couple of styles, such as bags and envelopes, padded mailers, corrugated boxes, and custom product packaging. You can also pick from various sizes and shapes to best match your product and business type. Firstly, corrugated boxes are the most common packaging type due to their lightweight design. Furthermore, they provide high-quality sturdiness and consist of eco-friendly materials. All they need are additional protective materials to protect products against temperature changes, moisture, movement, and shock.

Bags, envelopes, and padded mailers make small, lightweight shipping options for smaller, more delicate items. Padded mailers have additional protection built inside for careful, safe product protection that can hold up against movement. As such, shipping bags are versatile, cost-efficient, strong, storage-friendly, and waterproof. They’re perfect for shipping clothing items. Lastly, custom product packaging includes custom fitting to optimize shipping, eliminate waste, and cut fulfillment costs.

Minimize Packaging Waste

One tip when choosing product packaging for your e-commerce business is to minimize as much waste as possible through every shipping stage. Some product packaging options aren’t the best investment for your business, as they can consist of wasteful materials that aren’t sustainable or good for the environment. Furthermore, packaging can have higher costs than your expected ROI.

So your e-commerce business must choose quality packaging that includes optimal, eye-catching designs and perfectly fits your products and brand at minimal costs. If you want to succeed with your product packaging, you only want to use the necessary materials and items through each packaging stage.

Remember Your Target Audience

An e-commerce business relies on understanding its core audience and providing products that remain relevant to their everyday lives. If you want your product packaging to include your brand image or logo, remember that it shouldn’t be entirely about you. Your customers determine what makes or breaks your business’s future, so it’s crucial that your product packaging does its job while leaving a positive impression on your target audience.

It should mix your customers' needs and what you want your business to say. Product packaging design that connects with your customers makes it easier for them to like your packaging and keep coming back.

Express Your Creativity

There’s nothing like receiving packaging from your favorite company and being wildly impressed by the packaging design and overall theme. If you want to leave a lasting impression on customers, get creative with your product packaging. Considering packaging materials, innovative designs, and packaging inserts are just a few points to help you stand out from the competition while giving customers something visually attractive to look at.

Consider Packaging Relevancy

When your packaging misses the mark, it won’t leave a lasting impression on customers. Your packaging should contain all the information needed to impress the customer, show your brand identity, and describe the products within. Packaging relevancy is significant because it can trigger emotional responses and engagement and create visual interest. At the same time, it helps packaging remain simple in design to avoid overwhelming people who look at it.

Your e-commerce product packaging should remain relevant through appropriate font choices, colors, symbols, patterns, and materials. For instance, if you run a self-care e-commerce business, you should choose soothing colors with whimsical fonts and natural, green imagery. Packaging relevancy should give your customers an idea of what your business represents.

Mid-Atlantic Packaging offers high-quality packaging and shipping products for small businesses and shops. We offer custom poly mailers for boutiques, jewelry shops, glassware businesses, and many other professional fields that want protective yet compact packaging. For more information, contact us today.