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Every business decision reveals something about the owner of the business. The products you decide to sell, how you’ll price them, how you’ll treat your customers, and so much more reveal your values and priorities. Packaging is one of the simplest decisions for any business, which is why it reveals the most about the owner. A thoughtful and nicely packaged product communicates higher standards and attention to detail. Working with a supplier that offers custom printed boxes wholesale can be very profitable for business owners. These boxes can speak volumes to your customers about the type of business you are running and the level of respect you have for them. The simple box can say a lot about the owner of a business, and can reveal their personality.
What Cutting Corners on Packaging Actually Communicates
Packaging looks expensive and so looks to make the product inside look more desirable. Everyone wants to save money at some point and even established entrepreneurs will sometimes consider saving on the packaging to keep costs down, perhaps during harder trading times, early in the life of a business or when trying to keep prices low. However, to the recipient, packaging is all about image. It says something about the brand and as packaging looks expensive, it’s intended to make the product look more premium.
This happens every day. When a customer pays for a delivery, they expect to be treated to more than just a cheap generic box that’s been carelessly packaged and sent in the post. When a customer’s transaction ends the moment they’ve paid for a product or service, and they receive a product that clearly suggests lower standards have been employed across the entire business, they’re given a strong message. That message is one of cost cutting, of an undervaluing of the customer, and of a business that’s clearly not seeking to give the customer a great experience after they’ve made the purchase. These first impressions are hard to shake and will influence whether or not the customer purchases from the business again, and whether or not they might suggest the business to others.
An entrepreneur of honor is honest in all his dealings with customers ,visible and invisible alike. Your packaging is a place to demonstrate that honor that your customers may or may not even be able to put into words.
Attention to Detail Builds a Solid Reputation
Reputation is built not by big gestures but by a series of small actions over time. Sending an order in a clean packet with fitting and adequate packaging and with appropriate presentation is such a small action that most entrepreneurs do not give it a second thought. But every time you do this you are depositing a small amount of good into your business reputation. These deposits add up to create a base of trust that will sustain you through the ups and downs of any market.
Indicators of detail orientation are evident in packaging, and customers can pick up on the care with which an order has been boxed and sent. Most customers of consumables will subconsciously interpret such care with the packaging to mean that they can expect the same level of care with respect to the way they perceive the product quality, the accuracy with which their orders are fulfilled, and the responsiveness of the customer service team. As with any aspect of the business, there is a multiplier effect on return on investment across the business. In effect, the investment in packaging has value well beyond the packaging itself, and that value is reflected in the overall impressions of your brand that will influence purchasing decisions on all aspects of the business relationship with you.
Long lived businesses are almost always those where the founder has learned something important about themselves and about business. Packaging operates in an area of business that is outside of the high profile areas where business leaders are trying to demonstrate their character to stakeholders. No one grades packaging on a publicly visible report card. As a result the packaging choices a business makes are an honest reflection of their business character.
Respecting Customers Through the Physical Experience
I keep returning to the idea that genuine respect for customers is best manifested in concrete actions, rather than just ideological bumper stickers or marketing rhetoric. Packaging may be the last part of your product that your customers interact with before receiving it in the mail, and as such, it represents a specific investment in the unwrapping experience — as opposed to mere product design.
When a business purchases a supply of quality cardboard boxes wholesale, what does this say about the importance they place on the physical experiences of their customers? Clearly they believe that the investment in providing a quality physical experience is worth it to your customers to use products within your packaging. Moreover, this investment is not seen as a one off transaction, but rather as the foundation to build upon with ongoing positive experiences of your customers.
There is value in the physical package experience of receiving and opening a product from a retailer. While an analytically oriented business perspective seeks to weigh up various aspects of a purchase, most customers have an essentially physical and emotional experience of products and packages. Being made to feel pleased and valued by a well made and appropriately packaged delivery has a powerful and lasting impact on a customer’s behavior to the retailer and indeed to the brand. There is no other investment that can yield such returns.
Sustainability as a Character Statement
Environmental attributes of packaging have become a statement of brand values that customers make judgments about, and choosing packaging with an environmentally cheap imprimatur at lowest cost per unit can actually disqualify an entrepreneur from consideration by a growing segment of customers.
Using environmentally friendly packaging is an important aspect of your business that can leave a lasting impression. It shows that your business is a responsible enterprise that thinks long-term. The impact on the packaging is also likely to extend to other areas of your business such as your products and customer service. Customers with a keen sense of business sense are aware of the kind of treatment the environment receives, and how this will relate to how they are treated as an individual.
Sustainable packaging presents an opportunity for the packaging market to test companies’ mettle and ensure that they are making sustainable packaging, not just resorting to gimmicky green marketing language. Recycling information on packaging, the use of responsibly sourced materials, minimal excess packaging and honest waste disposal information are simple yet effective sustainability measures that require little if any additional cost premium.
Packaging as Business Mentality Made Visible
How an entrepreneur views packaging is a window into how they think about business in general. Someone who sees packaging as something to be minimized in cost is thinking about business from a place of scarcity and that mindset and others like it will limit potential for growth and impact on customer relationships. Someone who views packaging as an investment in customer experience and brand building is applying an abundance mindset that leads to value and sustainable business.
This mentality difference shows up in many places. Most notably, when studying the kinds of businesses that can last for decades and even centuries and compare them to those that are mere transients in the marketplace. Time and again, the businesses with the most loyal customer base have invested in the entire customer experience, including the packaging and the moment that represents the culmination of all of the promises made during the selling process.
You can read business characters from mission statements and from tweets and Facebook updates. More revealing, however, is the character of a business shown in the operational decisions it makes when no one is watching and there is no immediate gain. Packaging policies are a good example of how business character is expressed through the day-to-day actions a company takes on behalf of the brand, beyond the values that the business claims to stand for and the communications it carries out to engage with consumers.
The Practical Character of Right-Sized Packaging
One such business decision that particularly reveals the thinking behind a packaging choice is the size of the box relative to the size of the packed product. Many companies pack products that are not very large in overly large boxes in order to avoid keeping a variety of different box sizes in stock. This decision, which only makes sense from an operational convenience standpoint, also inversely impacts the customer experience, the environment, and the shipping cost.
Optimizing packaging to reduce waste requires more up front effort and investment to understand the dimensions of your products and research efficient packaging solutions. But that effort, and investment, translates to better products, more responsive customer service and stronger supplier relationships, across the business. And it’s the entrepreneur who makes these decisions who is either showing their stuff or taking the easy way out.
Practical packaging character considerations include:
- Use the right box size that properly fits the product being shipped rather than defaulting to whatever is convenient
- Protect goods with packaging specifically designed to deliver products safely and intact
- Use materials of appropriate quality that reflect the product being shipped
- Remove packaging materials that add waste but provide no value to the customer experience
- Maintain consistent packaging specifications across all types of orders regardless of order size or customer profile
Building the Business You Would Want to Buy From
One simple test for the packaging decision you’re making is: Would you be happy with your product packaged the way you currently are? Does the packaging convey the quality, care and professionalism of your brand?
As most entrepreneurs will attest to, when they walk through the packaging experience that they deliver to their customers, they will often find gaps between what they experience and what they would want. Filling these gaps is not a packaging issue; it’s a character issue. It’s about applying the standards you would want applied to you on the customer experience to every aspect of how you run your business.
The businesses worth building are those where you try to show real respect for customers, be honest about what your business stands for, and fair-minded in your dealings in every box, every marketing email, and every customer interaction — not just the ones that get a lot of attention.
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