When designing a product, the packaging can often get overlooked until the last moment. However, it’s a very important aspect of your product.
The primary purpose of packaging is to protect its contents from damage. However, packaging can also affect how visually attractive a product is. On top of this, packaging can be necessary to include all kinds of vital written information such as ingredients or warnings.
There are countless ways to package a product. While there’s often an industry standard method, some companies get creative and go against the grain. This can be a way to help your product stand out, but you must consider the practical pros and cons.
Which leads to this essential question: exactly what are the main features to consider when designing packaging? This post lists a few of the most necessary points to take into account.
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Know your budget
Your budget will limit exactly what kind of packaging styles you can choose. Luxury packaging options like embossed wood wrapped in silk are unlikely to be viable for those on a tight budget. Paper bags and cardboard are much cheaper to mass-produce and therefore could be the better option.
Of course, you need to consider whether you’re selling a premium product or a budget product. While more premium options may be expected for products like diamond jewellery and designer shoes, no-one expects toilet paper or bin bags to come in a leather box. If you were to opt for this, you’d have to price the product much higher to make up for the cost of packaging. And then customers will expect the product inside to be premium quality.
At the same time, you need to be careful of going very cheap with packaging. Basic low cost cardboard may not be a practical option for some budget products as it may not offer the right amount of protection. Products like liquids in cartons may need to be packaged in specific polyethylene-coated paperboard, which will cost a little more than regular paperboard, but will provide the necessary protection against leaking.
Make it suitable for transportation
It’s during the transportation of products that most damage occurs. By choosing the right packaging materials, you can ensure your product won’t get damaged in transit.
Loose items will typically need to be secured in place with moulds to prevent damage from movements. Alternatively, you can cushion items with bubble wrap or loose fill.
Food products and medication typically need to be sealed tight to prevent them from spoiling. This usually involves using tightly screwed lids. Materials like glass and plastic are commonly used to provide a barrier from heat and moisture.
To maximise the amount of products that can be shipped at once, consider the shape of the packaging. Boxes that can be stacked or closely packed into a tessellating pattern will save space, allowing more products to be shipped and stored at once. While designing packaging, it may also be worth considering the types of palettes you will use and how you will stop items moving (if you plan to shop lots of your products at once).
Opt for sustainable materials
While packaging should offer adequate protection, you also need to consider its impact on the environment. A growing number of companies are moving away from unnecessary plastic. This could include using cardboard moulds instead of plastic moulds.
Because plastic can offer superior protective qualities, some companies find it is still the best option – particularly when stopping foods from spoiling. Choosing a recyclable plastic can be the next best solution. Make sure to label the packaging clearly to tell consumers that it can be recycled.
Try to avoid excess packaging where possible. Try to go ultra-compact, but avoid squeezing items into packaging to the point where you could cause damage. Vacuum sealed bags have become popular in some industries as a way of making packaging more compact, but can increase the cost of packaging.
Explore unique shapes and colours
Certain shapes and colours could help your product to stand out on the shelf. This typically involves going against industry standards such as not using the traditional wine bottle shape when choosing a bottle for your wine. Check out some of these weird and wonderful packaging ideas for inspiration.
It’s important to remember that unusual shapes may affect cost and transportation. Certain unusual colours may also stand out but may be avoided for a reason – consider the psychological connotations of different colours (e.g. using pink may suggest that a product is solely for women). There may similarly be connotations with certain shapes that you need to be careful of.
Incorporate your visual branding
If you’ve already chosen a logo and brand colour, it’s important to incorporate these into your packaging. Start by considering your brand colours – if dark blue seems to be a recurring colour throughout your marketing, you may want to incorporate this into your packaging to maintain consistency.
Logos can be added to packaging in all different ways. The most common method is to print them on, however on more luxury packaging you could consider embossing your logo or creating a cutout in the shape of your logo (best suited for simple logos).
Provide all essential information
Packaging needs to contain certain written information to protect consumers. If your product is going to be sitting on a shelf in a store, it will likely need more written information printed on it than a product that is going to be directly shipped from a website (in this case, you may be able to put all the information on your website instead of on the packaging).
What kind of information is important to detail on store-focused packaging? It depends very much on the type of product you are selling, but a few pieces of information you may want to consider include:
- Company name
- Place and date of manufacture
- Quantity and size of product
- Weight of product
- Expiry dates
- Ingredients (on consumable products)
- Product instructions
- Safety warnings (such as allergy warnings on food products or small parts warnings on toys)
- CE marking and other trust badges
- Recycling symbol (if the product is recyclable)
- Barcode
Some packaging companies may be able to help you ensure that all the right information is included on the packaging. Make sure that all information is entirely truthful – you don’t want to get sued for false advertising because you mislabelled the weight.
Get the security/accessibility balance right
One of the hardest balances that modern product companies have to deal with is making sure that products are securely packaged to prevent the wrong people gaining access to them easily while also making sure the product can be opened by consumers with disabilities.
One such dilemma involves child resistant packaging found on products like medication. Some medication companies have had complaints that consumers with disabilities cannot access them. This has led these companies to produce non-CR packages that can be sent directly to consumers providing that they can prove there are no kids living in their home.
Tamper resistant steals are often added to products to ward off thieves and vandals. This could be as simple as adding tape or staples to a product so that a thief cannot easily take the product out without leaving behind evidence that they have tampered with it.
Choose the right manufacturer
Finding a manufacturer who can affordably produce packaging to your individual specs is important. There are lots of manufacturers out there, so you need to do your research to find the right one.
Consider looking into specialist manufacturers for specialist packaging solutions such as packaging of nutraceutical products. You can then be certain that your packaging will meet industry legal guidelines. Such companies may even have white label packaging options to choose from that can reduce the amount of design necessary.
Choosing a local manufacturer is recommended if you’re selling your product locally. While it can sometimes be cheaper to manufacture products overseas, you need to consider the environmental cost and different legal standards that another country may have.
Read client reviews of manufacturers to make sure that they have a good reputation. This could reduce the risk of packaging errors and complications that could end up affecting your own reputation.
Test your packaging
Before your product is put on sale, it’s worth creating packaging prototypes so that you can test them. When looking at a design on a screen, there may be problems that you overlook. Only once the packaging is in your hands can you get a real idea of how good it looks and how durable it is.
Consider doing a trial delivery to see how your packaging copes with the shipping process. This could be particularly important with fragile products – if your packaging is robust, your product should survive the journey without any damage.
When testing your product on focus groups, it could also be worth including it within the packaging. You can then test certain factors such as how customers open the packaging and whether they notice certain information on the packaging.
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