To Package Or Not To Package: The E-Commerce Platform

In 2020 despite the pandemic, online retailers in several countries saw a steady spike in their e-commerce sales that has continued with the series of lockdowns – the Republic of Korea saw the greatest increase in spending. 

With physical restrictions on the movement of consumers, companies had no choice but to turn to the internet. While this had many pros for both retailers and consumers, it also posed a few challenges in terms of how to make a product stand out from the competition. Especially on retail sites such as Amazon that have lots of products next to each other over several pages. Packaging has always needed to fulfill two functions: the practical and the aesthetic. Both are valuable to the product and therefore to the brand that is selling that product. 

Almost 20% of online shoppers have mentioned the packaging of the product they have bought in online reviews. This is where the differences in what online and in-store consumers want from packaging becomes apparent. In-store consumers need something that appeals to them visually and reflects the product inside, since – usually – they are not being faced with the actual product; so the decision that they make to purchase your product is purely on the first impression of the packaging. Online consumers don’t choose based on the packaging of a product, their choice is based on an image of the product they will receive, however the impression that the packaging makes on them when they get their delivery is still important. Therefore your packaging needs to be easy to open with obvious branding if you want to make the most of the unboxing trend – since the amount of time people spend watching unboxing videos just on their phone is equivalent to watching Love Actually 20 million times.

So packaging for e-commerce isn’t meaningless, it can actually help to elevate your brand and entice new customers to buy your products if they like the way it looks on social media. So how to make sure you’re making the most out of those unboxing videos? 

• Put your brand on the box
• Use influencers – find people who align with your brand and have an audience that you are trying to appeal to or are already familiar with
• Keep an eye on the design markets, e-commerce designs are starting to differ from high-street designs (Check out: https://worldbranddesign.com)
• Be authentic, people love the story behind the companies they buy from and they want to feel like they know you. Make this evident in your packaging

Take your e-commerce packaging to the next level with BPAK, we offer packaging solutions across the board including in design, formulation and market research.