Packaging over the peak season is often overlooked or worse, sometimes it is ignored altogether. For retail, ecommerce and fulfilment the final quarter of the year is by far the busiest. With events such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and of course the festive season, products and packaging are flying out of your business and through the doors of your customer. Planning your packaging properly could be the difference between a successful peak season and an unsuccessful end to the year. Your packaging is the first point of contact your customer has with your brand and your product, let’s take a look at how to make it magical this peak season.
Ensuring the resilience of your packaging, including specially designed festive packaging, is crucial, although it may seem like common sense. It is imperative that your packaging can endure the challenges posed by the transportation and courier networks you utilise. Your packaging should be built to withstand potential scenarios such as being dropped, crushed, exposure to moisture (left out in bad weather), and general mishandling. This becomes especially critical during the delivery demands of the festive period.
To guarantee your packaging stands up to the potential damages faced in transit, prioritise the right size boxes, incorporate protective inserts or Space fill, and ensure quality of your overall packaging materials.
A significant cause of product damage during transit, is the movement within large outer packs or collisions between multiple items. An effective solution is incorporating products like Space fill paper.Â
Many individuals have encountered the frustration of receiving small items in excessively large packages when making online purchases. Despite being a common occurrence, this continues to rank among the top annoyances for consumers. During the festive season, when there is a surge in volume of boxes and packaging, consumers prefer to avoid the additional inconvenience of dealing with excessive packaging and substantial amounts of cardboard. The issue becomes particularly pronounced for items that can only be discarded, such as air sacks and bubble wrap. But beyond the irritation it causes other detriments; environmental impact, increases transportation costs, packaging that prevents the product being delivered safely, for example not fitting through the letterbox.
Another frustration for consumers is receiving packaging that is nearly impossible to open. While it is crucial for packaging to ensure the protection of products during transportation to outlets or end users delivery addresses, the annoyance of struggling to access a new purchase can negatively impact your brand and product impression. Fortunately, several solutions are available to address this issue, such as incorporating tear strips and innovative locking mechanisms that enhance the overall unboxing experience.
Addressing the concept of unboxing, the experience you offer your customers has the potential to infuse real magic into your brand and products. At a minimum, contemplate incorporating internal printing on your ecommerce packaging. However, the possibilities extend beyond simple touches. Explore things such as packaging inserts that showcase the products upon opening or incorporate luxurious appearance and tactile experience. You might even design the packaging in a way that encourages consumers to retain it for ongoing storage of the products. When all of these elements come together with your company branding or a seasonal theme, they have the power to delight your customers and foster long-term loyalty.
Expanding on the issue of consumers disliking oversized packaging, the problem can intensify if your packaging is not easily recyclable or requires disassembly into parts for recycling. Across a range of age groups and demographics, there is a growing demand for more sustainable packaging and products.This is especially pronounced during the the festive season, which many view as extremely wasteful and extravagant. If consumers view your brand as not environmentally friendly, it’s likely to have detrimental impact on your long-term sales. If you demonstrate a commitment to sustainability, such as using FSC- certified packaging, can be an extremely positive element to many customers.
By combining all of these points, and planning your packaging and its design well and in plenty of time, you can make your peak season one to remember.Â
