Choosing the Right Packaging for Your Product

Your product is great, and it deserves great packaging. Learn what goes into choosing packaging for your product!

Why Is Packaging Important?

While the real prize is the product inside, your packaging attracts prospective buyers and makes your product stand out. If it blends in, how many people will pick it up? Packaging also reinforces your brand — think about Tiffany Blue® boxes, bear-shaped honey bottles, bright red Coke cans and Campbell’s soup cans. Then there are the functional purposes of packaging, from protecting your product and ensuring regulatory compliance to helping your company meet its sustainability needs.

Choosing the right packaging for your product can yield all these benefits, but it’s not as simple as placing your product in a square-shaped box with your branding colors. You’ll need to consider several elements first.

Factors to Consider When Choosing Packaging

The proper packaging protects your product, appeals to your customers, fits your budget, helps meet your sustainability goals, and adheres to compliance and regulation standards. It may seem too tall of an order, but with the right packaging partner, you can find something that fits your company’s needs.

Packaging Materials

Packaging comes in many forms. Here are a few of the popular options:

• Corrugated cardboard: Despite its impressive strength, corrugated packaging is lightweight, which can reduce shipping costs. It’s also one of the most environmentally friendly options.
• Plastic: While affordable, plastic is much less environmentally friendly than paper products and other materials.
• Glass: Glass is sleek and elegant but is more prone to breaking during transit.
• Metal: While metal is durable and reusable, it’s also typically a more expensive option.

Product Characteristics

Before exploring your packaging options, assess your product’s:

• Size.
• Shape.
• Fragility.
• Shelf-life.
• Weight.

These characteristics help inform the type of packaging that will work for your product. For example, if your product is heavy and oddly shaped, you might benefit from strong corrugated packaging with fabricated or biodegradable foam inserts.

Transportation and Logistics Requirements

Protecting your product is your No. 1 priority. Shipping and handling presents a risk to your product, whether you’re an e-commerce business shipping your products directly to customers or a retail brand whose products get shipped to stores.

Packaging should be the right size to protect your products during transit — not too small or too large. It should also be durable, which is why glass is not always a practical option. Working with a team of structural engineers can ensure your packaging can withstand the rigors of the supply chain.

Target Market and Consumer Preferences

Understanding your audience is essential for creating your product and its packaging. What are your audience’s demographics? Their beliefs and values? Do they respond to bright colors or minimalistic designs? Is sustainability important to them? How much will they want to know about the product by looking at the packaging? From there, you can start the design process.

Packaging Design and Branding Elements

Design encompasses several elements, including:

• Branding elements: Emphasize your brand by including your logo, using your company colors or otherwise determining how your packaging can reflect your brand story.
• Ease of opening: Opening packaging should be simple. Customers excited about their purchase will only feel frustrated if the packaging is overly complicated.
• Shelf-space optimization: How can you optimize your space on the shelves? Is your product stackable or able to fit snugly in a row?
• Colors: Colors can impact emotions, so be mindful of the colors you use in your packaging. For example, red is attention-grabbing, while purple is sophisticated and noble.

To draw more eyes to the shelves, consider custom-printed packaging solutions that allow you to print colors, logos and images right onto your packaging.

Budget Considerations

To balance your budget while receiving high-quality packaging, work with a high-quality supplier. Packaging materials impact costs — corrugated materials are more affordable than glass or metal — as do custom prints and design complexity. However, you can still get the packaging you desire at a cost that works for your business. For example, flexographic print is more cost-effective than other printing processes if you want printed packaging solutions.

Sustainability and Eco-Friendliness

While more than 75% of organizations have made ambitious commitments to packaging sustainability, not even 30% are ready to meet those goals. When you work with a packaging company focused on eco-friendliness, you can appeal to eco-conscious consumers and reduce your organization’s environmental footprint.

When it comes to sustainable packing and reducing packaging waste, you have a few options:

• Recyclable materials: Corrugated materials decompose up to 1,000 years faster than plastic and have a 93% recycling rate.
• Reusable materials: Packing your products in reusable boxes means your customers can reuse the packaging after the unboxing.
• Biodegradable options: Biodegradable products break down, so they won’t stay in landfills for hundreds or thousands of years.
• Custom packaging: Custom boxes fit the product. There’s no extra material that creates additional waste or leads to excess space in the box.
• No plastic: Plastic, especially single-use plastic, doesn’t do the environment any favors. Look for opportunities to eliminate plastic altogether to improve your brand’s carbon footprint.

Gen Zers and millennials are particularly concerned with sustainability, so if you want to attract these audiences, prioritize environmental responsibility.

While there might be an extra cost associated with sourcing sustainable packaging materials, some strategies can help you find a balance between budget and eco-friendliness:

1. Opt for recycled materials to reduce the need for virgin materials.
2. Minimize waste by sourcing options that fit your products snugly.
3. Evaluate the long-term savings from lower transportation costs and reduced waste.
4. Explore bulk-buying options to take advantage of volume discounts.
5. Partner with a sustainably minded packaging provider.

Compliance and Regulations

Product packaging must comply with regulations set by bodies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Meeting compliance standards is essential for packaging food and medical devices.

How Can You Ensure Your Packaging Will Protect Products?

Packaging protects your product, but it also protects your company’s reputation. When customers receive damaged products or notice that the packaging on a store’s shelf has seen better days, they may not purchase from your brand in the future.

Testing and prototyping provide a solution. At Great Northern, our technicians are certified by the International Safe Transit Association (ISTA®). Our ISTA 6 test lab exposes packages to conditions they might encounter throughout the supply chain. For example, our technicians perform the following tests:

• Incline testing
• Vibration testing
• Free-fall drop testing
• Material handling tests
• Compression tests

Aside from working alongside a certified test lab, you can collect feedback from customers and stakeholders to further improve your packaging. Gather feedback via online surveys sent to email inboxes, or include business cards with QR codes that lead to feedback forms inside your packaging.

Contact Great Northern Packaging for Product Packaging Solutions

Packaging should be considered a strategic decision, and no one understands that more than Great Northern. Our cost-effective packaging solutions help protect your products during transit while also emphasizing your unique brand. From design, printing and manufacturing capabilities to other quality-assurance services like testing at our ISTA 6 test lab, we’re ready to meet your packaging needs.

Explore our consumer packaging products, or contact a packaging expert to get started today!