Why does a pretty box matter?

How should a package in which you send your products look? Surely the first thing you want to say is “durable” or “secure”, and you’re right. But don’t marginalize the looks. You can be sure that your clients will pay attention to it.

You probably remember your last online shopping. How about the package in which the product you’d ordered was delivered? No? Not a good news for the seller as he probably missed out on a great occasion. Several occasions, to be precise.

Package is the showcase of your brand

Even when your clients don’t mind cardboard boxes that you “borrow” from a local shop next to your office, the boxes which express your brand will certainly help you. All in all, packaging is the only marketing channel in your omnichannel strategy that reaches all of your clients.

Of course, if you’re offering shower gaskets, car air filters or even books (and you just happen to be world’s biggest bookstore), you probably won’t see any difference. But the more you want your product to appeal to your client, the nicer the box should be.

First impression matters!

A first impression is a one-off occasion and there’s a very limited time slot to make use of that. And we’re talking very limited – most often it’s just a few seconds and these seconds are precious.

It would be good if, during that time, the client didn’t see that his product had been smashed by a delivery man (you can’t fully control that, but you can minimise the risk). It would also be better if the precious liquid didn’t spill through the entire box due to bad packaging methods (hopefully the liquid wasn’t toxic).

You’ll achieve a success once the client likes your package. 34 percent of consumers questioned by Dotcom Distribution admit that a branded package or a gift box improves the brand’s image significantly.

Well-packed luxury

On the other hand Zara uses elegant cardboard boxes. And it knows what it’s doing. 61 percent of the consumers from Dotcom Distribution survey who claimed that packaging influences the image of the brand declare that thanks to its appealing packaging they consider the brand to be luxurious. 44 percent feel that the product is worth its price. An appealing package also enforces the excitement caused by the delivery (49 percent).

Stay with the client for longer

Is there someone who’s never been tricked by the ice-cream box which turned out to be a box for dill leaves? We strongly doubt that. Cookie jar also quite rarely contains cookies and mostly sewing accessories. Back in the day when a computer was associated with a mysterious box assembled by a friend working in IT, some of us kept CDs with drivers or operational systems in the motherboard box.

We generally like to reuse packages, especially if they look good and if using them means avoiding the trip to a Swedish furniture store on the suburbs. Move to the client’s shelf with your own brand!

A package may also serve to store the product. Just as a CDP Insider box prepared by zapakuj.to, in which a limited edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was put. The box serves as a playing cards box that are attached to both expansion packs. The exposition of your branding comes for free.

Let others share!

Before your box reaches your client’s shelf it can become a YouTube star. YouTube’s search engine displays 52 milion records for the query “unboxing”. The most popular videos from this category reached several dozen millions of views (the record is 165 million views), and the most popular channels that specialize in unboxing packages with the new gear are followed by several million subscribers. Also, the brands themselves record unboxing videos – for instance Samsung does so. As per data from Google Consumer Surveys, every fifth consumer watches unboxing videos.

And we’re talking only about publicly shared Youtube videos. Counting all the photos of the boxes shared on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Messenger may prove impossible. 39 percent of the people surveyed by Dotcom Distribution admitted that in the past they shared a photo of a package in social media shortly after they’d received it. The reason for this is clear – we like to boast about the new purchase and at the same time we want to find out what other people think about it. Social media buzz proves to be one of the significant reasons for purchase – 71 percent of the people surveyed by Mintel research for US Beauty Retailing admitted that social media posts encouraged them to purchase specific products.

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A top-quality box surely won’t be used once and thrown away – there’s a high probability it’ll stay with your client for much longer. In his memories (which will matter during the subsequent purchasing decisions), on his shelf (which will matter even more during the subsequent purchasing decisions), or even better – on his Instagram profile.

Welcome to our blog. We’re glad that you’re reading it attentively. Stay with us and visit us regularly! We’ll be writing about good practices in packaging. We’ll also show you how to make your package a powerful marketing tool, how to stand out from other brands and how to learn from the best. Finally, but most importantly, we’ll teach you how to design a good package.

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