Branding packaging experience is a creative process of carefully selecting packaging forms and transportation materials to display our products. Its purpose is to enhance the added value of corporate identity for our customers by creating an unforgettable and sharable consumption experience. Then how do we create an open box experience worth sharing for the brand?
For e-commerce enterprises, packaging is the most direct contact point with customers, and it is often one of the marketing opportunities that businesses are most likely to ignore and take advantage of.
Think back. When was the last time you seriously considered our packaging form and unpacking experience?
For many online retailers, the answer is usually "never".
The need for packaging in e-commerce is to protect the most important thing - the products ordered by our customers. However, with the development of e-commerce and the change of consumer habits, providing a complete brand experience throughout the whole consumption process even goes beyond the product itself.
In this article, we try to discuss how important it is to use all the tools and resources to provide an excellent brand out of box experience, and how our customers will be happy to share these experiences with their friends and family.
Then let's see what we should do to improve.
What is a branded packaging experience?
To put it simply, branding packaging experience is a creative process of carefully selecting packaging forms and transportation materials to display our products. Its purpose is to enhance the added value of corporate identity for our customers by creating an unforgettable and sharable consumption experience.
Compared with physical retail, e-commerce lacks more contact points to deeply impress customers, so it is very important to make good use of each contact point. We must shape the brand experience by creating an unforgettable use experience for our customers, so that we can stand out from our competitors.
Trunk club in the United States is such a company that takes the unpacking experience of customers seriously. From the beginning, instead of choosing a standard tape sealed box for packaging, they customized a printed box with a handle similar to a suitcase to closely cooperate and strengthen their brand.
From the moment you leave the trunk club in the "suitcase" to the moment you go to your house, you will find yourself experiencing an experience that you may be eager to open the package.
The items in the "suitcase" are carefully arranged so that the goods can be fully displayed when unpacking, and customers can deeply understand their intentions. In order to further build a customized brand experience for customers, all orders include a designer's personalized handwritten card to explain the reason for product selection, which will really make you feel a special feeling in your heart.
Obviously, the unpacking experience that has been put into a lot of efforts makes customers feel excited and happy. Next, let's look at why trunk club tries its best to create this experience for customers.
Why is branding packaging experience important?
An important part of building a long-term and sustainable brand is to let customers buy back again and again. Although it has been repeatedly mentioned by many commercial organizations and media, we should still realize that it is always an effective way to reduce the investment in operating costs to encourage existing customers to buy again instead of blindly looking for new customers.
In a recent dotcom distribution survey, it can be found that 52% of consumers are willing to repeat purchases from online merchants that provide high-quality packaging.
In this study, dotcom also found that if the product packaging is unique, 40% of consumers will take photos and share them through social media.
"The value that high-quality packaging forms and unpacking experiences can far exceed customers' expectations lies in the residual marketing effects they generate. When customers open packages with exquisite packaging and share experiences on social networks, their expanded value exceeds this online order. online sharing behavior and social recommendations greatly drive the improvement of customer loyalty and brand awareness."—— Maria Haggerty, CEO, dotcom distribution
Generally speaking, people like to share pleasant experiences. Returning to the example of trunk club, if you search "trunk Club unpacking" on Google, you will find thousands of blog posts, pictures and videos. Each of these search results is created spontaneously by customers, and they further help spread trunk club to more people. These valuable backlinks help improve the brand's SEO (search engine optimization).
For example, search trunk Club unpacking videos, and any YouTube video has nearly 50000 + browsing records.
What affects the brand packaging experience?
A well-designed brand packaging and unpacking experience can contain many factors. We don't have to cover every factor, but focus on which factor can help bring the best experience and provide the greatest value to our customers.
By strategically selecting a few of the following items, we can create a better and more memorable experience for our customers.
Let's take a look at some factors that may be considered:
(1) Box
The biggest factor to consider is the express box. Traditionally, white and brown corrugated boxes have been firmly dominant because of their low price. Express boxes are the most convenient way to provide an amazing experience, but they usually come with high costs.
(2) Wrapping paper
Unpacking the products wrapped in wrapping paper will add a mysterious and exciting unpacking experience. From the perspective of strengthening the brand's feeling, some options worth considering are to use brand customized printed tissue paper or colored tissue paper.
(3) Filler
Traditional fillers include foam plastic bags, foam wedges, air pillows or bubble films. Although bubble film has been filled and used in various fields for a long time, it lacks visual appeal and lacks strength in terms of the requirements for improving brand experience. Relatively few other forms of filling also include crepe paper (colored) or fine shavings.
(4) Stickers
It can be used in many ways. If you use packaging paper, you can seal the packaging paper with trademark stickers, or you can replace the (expensive) custom printing on the packaging box as an option for trademarks. Stickers are versatile and quite cheap.
(5) Promotional materials / business cards
A business card is not necessarily a card that displays company information in the traditional sense. It adds brand promotion to the package in a very cheap way. For example, we can put a discount card to provide the receiving customer with a discount on the next order, or even consider adding an additional one, so that users can give it to their relatives and friends to bring some additional word-of-mouth marketing.
Maybe we can also consider leaving a little space for notes or instructions, and the possibilities they bring are endless and the cost is not high.
(6) Receipt
The receipt should be the standard content in the package list, but there is a lot of room to improve how to deliver it to our customers.
Imagine how a fancy restaurant shows you the bill. In the best restaurants, the receipt will be delivered at an appropriate time, usually in an elegant way or put in a closed leather ticket folder. For express containers delivered by logistics, we should consider how and where to show customers their receipts.
(7) Customized note
It may not be a form of communication that is easy to expand, but there are still many ways to try when you open the box, including a handwritten note. It provides a feeling of individuality, which makes customers realize that behind the brand is the real living people rather than the process printed matter.
(8) Adhesive tape
Scotch tape, right? Now, we can choose different colors of tape to match our custom packaging and brand colors.
(9) Gifts
A small gift can be used as a surprise to please customers and enhance their overall experience. Ryan French, founder of game klip, put a little rainbow sugar and rocket sugar in every order. If you search "game klip rainbow sugar" in Google, the results will show nearly 7000 articles about their relevant experiences.
Deciding the small gifts to put in based on our average order specifications can enhance our brand unpacking experience.
(10) Sample
based on the customer information, we can also consider putting in a trial sample, which is likely to achieve cross sales by introducing new products to customers.
Cost of branded packaging and unpacking experience
Whether to customize branded packaging depends on the costs associated with it. These costs are expressed in the form of time and money. We need to decide whether we can afford them and which options are most valuable to our business according to our average order volume and profit margin. At the same time, the most important thing is not to forget our customers' feelings.
Custom packing boxes are often the most expensive cost. If you want to have your own customized printing box, we will find that the minimum order is often 500 +, and the cost is 5-25 yuan / box.
Some creative ideas can more easily help us save costs and achieve similar results. For example, for the color boxes designed in advance by suppliers such as Uline, the minimum order quantity and price are much lower, starting from 50, at 2.5 yuan / box.
If you want to further customize, you can consider choosing sticker giant's logo printing sticker service or similar services.
In most cases, the larger the order quantity of various packaging materials, the lower the cost. Planned consolidation of large orders can reduce costs.
conclusion
Create an unforgettable unpacking experience that our customers are willing to share, which helps the brand to shape the competitive advantage of repeating business and attracting new customers.
Andy Dunn, founder of bonobos, said well: "in the end, you are not building an e-commerce company, but a brand with e-commerce as the core distribution channel."
Then let's re evaluate our packaging in the next time. Considering the current cost, our average order size and profit margin, evaluate what we can do to bring our customers a better experience, promote them to buy back and share their
