With the amount of money spent on online shopping continuing to rise year after year, it is essential for businesses to find ways to revamp their e-commerce shipping. While various e-commerce strategies embrace having a foolproof shipping and delivery procedure in place, the most fundamental approach is investing in the right shipping materials. Here, we’ll introduce you to some unique ways to revamp your e-commerce shipping by investing in the best packaging supplies.
Why E-Commerce Packaging Matters
Packaging is one of the most critical factors determining how customers feel about a brand. When getting started, it might be tempting for small businesses to cut corners in this area, considering they might already be struggling to make ends meet. However, not paying attention to the significance of packaging may be an error that jeopardizes your brand, the product’s quality, and, ultimately, your bottom line. Here are three reasons e-commerce packaging matters.
(1) Packaging Defines a Brand
The first thoughts buyers have about a brand are heavily influenced by the presentation of the products in the online marketplace. Recent research on e-commerce packaging shows that design accounts for 94% of first impressions. Another study found that customers make one-third of their online purchasing decisions based on the appearance and feel of the product’s packaging.
Packaging is one of the few remaining branding opportunities that is visceral, tangible, and inescapable, especially in a world where customers are becoming more skilled at dodging and ignoring advertising. Whether you think of Coca-Cola’s curved boxes, Tiffany’s blue jewelry boxes, elegant Barneys black retail bags, or Pringles’ snack-stacking cylinders, packaging matters.
How your customers connect with your brand is directly impacted by your chosen packaging. For example, a small printed logo or product safety guideline sticker on a cardboard or corrugated shipping box has the potential to be a powerful marketing tool that educates customers about the product as well as your brand. Additionally, it might help individuals remember your brand for their next purchase, allowing you to turn those first-time buyers into repeat customers.
(2) It Protects the Customer Experience
On a deeper, more procedural level, good packaging serves to safeguard the product enclosed inside it. When delivering the highest level of safety for the least amount of money and in the smallest possible footprint, not all available packaging choices are made equal. However, when you work with a responsible packaging supplier, you can enjoy many financial and eco-friendly benefits.
According to poll results, 11% of customers said they are only somewhat pleased with today’s packaging. Most participants stated that their primary worries are excessive, hard-to-open, damaged, non-recyclable, and non-sustainable excessive packaging. This research proves that if you keep these areas in mind when investing in packaging supplies, you may quickly turn visitors into customers.
Additionally, adequate packaging supplies like corrugated boxes, packaging tapes, bubble bags, and brown paper rolls also help your bottom line by generating savings in areas other than reducing the number of damaged items.
For example, if you use protective materials and strategically palletize your goods, you may cut your expenses by lowering the prices of your supplies and shipping. On the other hand, a product delivered whole and in aesthetically pleasing packaging is a total win-win.
(3) It Reinforces Your Product/Brand
If you predominantly sell products on your online store, you might make the mistake of thinking of the packaging as an afterthought. Since you’re not competing against other superbly designed items on store shelves, it is easy to underestimate the importance of product packaging on brand recognition among customers who shop online. However, this shouldn’t be the case.
According to a recent poll, forty percent of respondents said they would be slightly more inclined to buy from a brand if it supports sustainability and environmental friendliness. Thus, besides focusing on things like the quality of your goods and competitive pricing points, you must pay attention to implementing eco-friendly e-commerce practices in your shipping area to target a huge demographic.
If you run a small business that depends heavily on e-commerce, most customers’ first and only encounter with your brand may be via the packaging of your products. Compared to other conventional types of promotional packaging, corrugated cardboard costs are relatively low. What’s more? They are a completely renewable resource: recyclable, environmentally responsible, and compostable. In addition, you can easily add a touch of your brand to the corrugated box via fancy printables.
How to Improve E-Commerce Shipping Via Packaging?
The number of online buyers has been increasing worldwide year after year, especially in the United States. This indicates that to adjust to the requirements of the target audience, e-commerce businesses must completely revamp their shipping—and this can only be done by paying attention to improving the essential part of any online e-commerce business: product packaging.
It is just that simple: If you want your e-commerce business to reach new heights and be successful in the market, you need to prioritize the packaging of your products. The fact that 97% of customers who shop online consider packaging to be the second most important factor (after product quality) when it comes to buying again from the same brand highlights how vitally crucial product packaging really is.
Additionally, sustainability and environmental friendliness are becoming much more important to customers, particularly middle-aged and younger generations, such as Millennials (1980-1994), Generation Z (1995-2012), and Gen Alpha (2013 – 2025). Let’s now talk about five ways to completely revamp your e-commerce shipping (by improving product packaging).
(1) Find the Right-Sized E-Commerce Packaging
When it comes to e-commerce packaging, double-check that the carton box is suitable for the item you’re attempting to send out to the customer. For this, you’ll need to consider the protection provided on the interior and the outside of the package. Since it is inexpensive, strong, and recyclable, cardboard shipping boxes remain the material of choice for e-commerce use.
Other alternatives, such as kraft paper rolls, industrial peanuts, corrugated paper, crinkle paper, bubble rolls, newsprint paper, and foam rolls, may also be used for protective purposes.
Since the size and weight of a box impacts how much it costs to ship, corrugated boxes make everything as compact and light as possible (of course, without compromising the package’s integrity!). On the other hand, an obscenely large box not only doesn’t look good in terms of sustainability but will also turn off a buyer concerned about their environmental impact and carbon footprint.
(2) Invest in Innovative, Sustainable Packaging
Data shows that seventy-four percent of customers are ready to pay extra for environmentally friendly packaging, and more than half of customers (54 percent) take environmental friendliness into account when choosing a product. Thus, ensure that the wholesale packaging you use for your e-commerce business is favorable to the environment. In addition, always make an effort to show the customers that you care about your brand’s influence and value every action regarding sustainability.
(3) Invest in Top-Notch Packaging Supplies
When it comes to e-commerce, the packaging you choose plays a vital part since it is the customer’s first opportunity to contact your brand physically. However, the question is, how can you leverage packaging to create an outstanding experience?
To begin, ensure that the quality of your packaging supplies is top-notch. After all, nothing reflects worse on a business than having a shipment arrive damaged, and what’s even worse is when the goods inside are not in the expected state.
(4) Ensure Your Packaging is Easy to Open and Return
Have you ever received a parcel that was really hard to unpack? Or a gift where the tape was applied so excessively that it took you forever to remove it? If so, you know what we mean; your product packaging must be easy-to-open while providing the necessary level of security for the item. Besides easy-to-open packaging, the convenience of returns is another aspect to consider. It is essential to ensure that buyers can open the package easily and return it (if needed) with the same ease, too.
(5) Enclose the Package with Freebies
Who doesn’t appreciate a complimentary coupon or a discount voucher? In a recent poll, 89% of customers expressed a desire to have freebies included in their orders. Whether it’s stickers, magnets, or free samples, including a little something extra in the box will leave the customer with a positive image that will stay with them forever. This strategy for e-commerce may significantly boost customer loyalty and encourage customers to make more purchases with your brand.
Key Takeaways
- Packaging makes a lasting impact on customers when it comes to how they view your brandand the product’s quality.
- Good packaging not only improves your brand’s image but can also encourage first-time buyers to become repeat customers.
- To completely revamp your shipping: find the right sized packaging, invest in sustainable supplies, ensure your packages are easy-to-open and easy to return, and add a freebie or two.
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