Ecommerce Archives - Page 2 of 2

Matching your eCommerce Packaging to your Online Brand

31/08

For years packaging has been viewed by many as a necessary evil; an area where costs should be kept as low as possible. Of course that was before eCommerce. That was before the online world started booming.

Now it’s different.

Custom Printed eCommerce Boxes

In this new world of eCommerce, where most transactions are carried out online with no tangible interaction with a brand, the physical delivery of the product has become the first tactile touch point of the sale. This first tangible impression can be the make or break of an online store.

For years high street brands have been investing millions into tangible shopping experiences. Eye-catching store fronts, aroma filled boutiques, in-store displays, and a helpful and personal in-store service are commonplace amongst the prestigious brands. Why then is this not carried forward to the tangible touch points of an online sale?

THE ONLINE BRAND / ECOMMERCE PACKAGING MATCH

High street brands have moved with the times to create an eCommerce arm to their company. They’ve created an online store to match their brand. It has all the bells and whistles and offers a great online shopping experience. It’s perfect.

The problem with a website is it is virtual. As humans we need tangible experience to give us confidence. Instinctively we prefer something we’ve felt and touched. We all know it’s easy to make something look good on a screen so we need tangible evidence to give us confidence to hit that ‘proceed to checkout’ button.

Put yourself in the customers’ shoes. Imagine you’ve overcome your instinct and clicked that proceed to checkout button. You’re a little apprehensive right? You don’t even for sure know if this order is going to turn up. Is the company you just ordered from even legitimate?

Now fast forward to the day of the delivery. Your parcel arrives. It’s a brown box that’s a bit battered. It’s sealed with brown packing tape. You pick at the corner of the tape for a few seconds and nearly break your nail off. Bother. You run through to the kitchen to grab some scissors. It’s pretty difficult to get the point of the scissors in so you apply a bit more pressure. The scissors slip and jab your hand. You wince and run back to the kitchen to get a plaster.

Is this really the way to treat a customer?

The box isn’t even open yet. The first tangible experience for the customer has been nothing but friction.

Can you understand when we ask ‘Why do established brands carry on this way?’

The 7 Golden Rules for Creating eCommerce Packaging with WOW Factor

It’s not difficult to make your customers’ unboxing experience frictionless. And doesn’t even cost much to make it WOW! Here are 7 golden tips to give you a head start on your competition and make your customers say WOW when they open your parcels.

1. Inject some Uniqueness! Your online brand is unique, you spent a while designing the logo so it represented something different and special, so why not spend a little time thinking about a unique packaging design. Everyone has rectangular boxes, they are boring. Why not triangular or cylindrical? Why not make even a rectangular box a bit different? Try a slide-together sleeve. Give it a bit of thought and try and match the shape and design to your logo or branding.
2. You understand the importance of making sure your website is user friendly and the purchasing flow is easy to follow. Think about this in terms of your packaging as well. Your packets need to be easy to open and not require dangerous knives. Add in tear opening strips or peel-easy adhesive to your packaging. Then your customer can easily unpack their exciting new delivery and the experience is not broken by going and finding a pair of scissors or running through to the kitchen to get a knife.
3. Don’t under-pack, if someone has spent a lot of money on your site they obviously think you’re worth it! They’ve looked at your website and thought “these guys look good I’ll place the order with them”. They’ll either be a high class customer expecting quality and luxury, or someone who’s worked hard for their money and this purchase is something special for them. Either way they will be expecting more than just a plastic bag. Spend that little extra on them and you’ll impress your customers and earn a loyal following.
4. Consider the texture of your theme. A vintage look site goes well with standard brown packaging with a rough quality print giving a dated look (Hey presto, you’re saving money already!). Alternatively if you have a glossy look to your online brand you can use glossy inks and finishes to your cardboard boxes for next to no extra costs. All it takes is a little innovative thinking about what materials would match well with your online brand.
5. Change your packaging designs regularly. You change your online adverts regularly to give your site a fresh look so why not do the same with your packaging? It will help give your brand a dynamic feel. Digital printing means you can now change your print designs without any setup costs and even print multiple different designs in one print run! What’s more you can change your box styles from one of our stock range so your customer is getting a different style box too!
6. Using high quality graphics is now cheaper than ever. It used to be a laborious and expensive process to print images on to packaging, but now printing processes have evolved to embrace much more flexibility and higher quality printing. Get really creative with new machine capabilities and get those graphics onto your packaging.
7. Remember to add in little extras to help them remember and return to your site. A small chocolate bar, a gift voucher, a thank you card? They all add that air of uniqueness to your company. It only has to be small, but if you put some thought into it and give them something that they really like it will make all the difference.

Innovative eCommerce Packaging for Jeans

We just love this fantastic packaging idea, a very original example of definitely thinking outside the box! Eye-catching and innovative, this would make a great unboxing/unwrapping video on social media and definitely get the brand liked and noticed.

eCommerce Packaging for Jeans

How to Get your Unboxing Videos onto Social Media

Google says unboxing videos have been trending up on search results since 2002. It’s no wonder that unboxing videos have become an important part of many retail brand’s marketing campaigns.

Unboxing videos can be created and used in two ways. Firstly they can be created by the online store themselves. These videos are often professionally created and show how to unpack a product and also what the parcel contains. Another more powerful method is to encourage your customers to make them and share them on social media. This gives your brand extra credibility and brand coverage to many more potential customers than your normal marketing efforts could match.

HOW TO ENCOURAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS TO SHARE AN UNBOXING VIDEO

To encourage your customers to share their new purchase on social media you need to make the unboxing experience impressive. Here are a few tips to get you thinking about what is important to your customer when designing your unboxing experience.

The Unboxing Journey: Think about taking your customer on a journey through the packaging, consider holding your customer in suspense with a series of cardboard flaps each printed with a message to hide the product from view until the last flap is raised. It will set the mood of excitement and add that bit extra to your brand that sets it apart from the rest.
The Unboxing Journey: Think about taking your customer on a journey through the packaging, consider holding your customer in suspense with a series of cardboard flaps each printed with a message to hide the product from view until the last flap is raised. It will set the mood of excitement and add that bit extra to your brand that sets it apart from the rest.
Pack your Products Neatly: Make sure your contents are neatly packed and can’t move around in transport, you don’t want an unboxing video to display a jumbled mess! Packing your parcels tightly also reduces the risk of damage to the products inside.
Use Incognito® eCommerce Boxes: Incognito® packaging is plain and understated on the outside to keep your delivery low key. But when the box is opened your customer is met with a blaze of colour. Incognito® eCommerce packaging really helps to impress your customer with a professional approach.

Incognito Ecommerce Box

By combining all or some of these points you will create an unboxing experience that really impresses your customer. Instinctively they will want to share their experience with their friends. When you have got them to this point all it takes it a short message asking them to take a video of their experience. You could even hold a competition for the best unboxing video and offer a prize.

The Unboxing Experience – Give Your Online Store the Edge

07/11

A lot has changed in the world of retail over the past 10 years. eCommerce has slashed footfall to brick and mortar retail stores and boosted online shopping to a dramatic level. But have retail marketing directors responded to this shift as well as they should have?

We are seeing many smaller online boutiques and start-ups grabbing more and more market share because they are delivering more than just the average. So, let’s work through why and how eCommerce packaging makes such a big impact.

What has Changed in the Marketing Mix?

In a brick and mortar route to market we see the importance in the physical touch points of the sale. The bright eye-catching store fronts. The well laid out shopping experience. The products laid out so customers can feel the product quality. The mood and feel of the in-store experience. It’s a tangible experience that draws a customer into the aura of the brand.

This can be replicated somewhat with an online shopping experience. We can use language that engages the customer. We can use colours and images that portray the brand theme. But the difference is it is all digital. There’s nothing tangible about the sale. It’s all just a picture on a screen.

So, what is the first tangible touch point of an online sale? It’s the delivery of the products themselves. It’s the moment the customer opens the parcel and touches their new items for the first time. In short, it’s the unboxing experience.

What is an eCommerce Unboxing Experience?

An eCommerce unboxing experience is the experience that you give your customer when they open their parcel and unpack their new purchase. Think about an in-store experience, you have colours and textures and smells creating a buying experience that the customer remembers. The unboxing experience needs to create that same involvement. It’s your only chance to provide that vital tangible memory that creates followers and ambassadors for your brand.

WOW Unboxing - Give Your Online Store the Edge

How to Make your Unboxing Experience Memorable

Let’s go over the steps to creating an unboxing experience that replaces the tangible in-store experience. There are 4 key areas that your eCommerce packaging needs to cover in order to make your unboxing experience memorable, they are:

1. It needs to engage emotions.
2. It needs to look good.
3. It needs to feel special.
4. It needs to smell unique.

If you just do one thing from each of these areas your online deliveries will stand out from the rest and give your customers the urge to share the experience with their friends.

Engaging Emotions

Engaging a person’s emotions can be as simple as writing them a thank you message. Just a short hand-written message can show a customer how grateful you are. Choose your words carefully and make sure you use a tone that fits in with your brand. For example, a children’s store would be bright and cheerful, a premium brand would be professional and polite, and a music store could use shortened words and slang.

Here’s a few ideas of where you can write your message:

- A post card or message card that you can put in the top of your parcel.
- Tie on tags but with a message not a price tag!
- Use message printed labels to secure the wrapping paper.
- **Ultimate Option** Print your message on the inside of the lid of your boxes.

Making your eCommerce Packaging Look Good

Just like a high street store your packaging needs to look good. Imagine a plain brown store front with a brown carpet, brown walls, and brown ceiling and no branding anywhere. You’d hardly get anyone stepping through the door let alone coming back time and time again. So why deliver in a plain brown cardboard box? Brighten your packaging up with printing and white finish, or an interesting design. Here’s a few ideas:

- Print your logo in your brand colours to brighten up your parcels and make them look professional.
- **Ultimate Tip** Use an Incognito® style eCommerce box that are printed on the inside for the best WOW factor unboxing experience.
- Wrap your products in printed or coloured tissue paper.
- Do away with packing tape by using boxes with a peel & seal closure and tear opening strip to make your parcels look clean and tidy.

Creating ‘Feels Good’ eCommerce Packaging

Making your packaging feel like your brand can be quite tricky without spending a little bit more. After all premium quality packaging almost always costs more, but here’s a few ideas anyway:

- Matt kraft finishes are coming back into fashion and are often a more attractive choice over standard white. Choose a kraft finish on both sides for a premium feel to your packaging.
- Advertise the environmentally friendly aspect of your packaging, cardboard has a high recycled content and is bio-degradable as well as recyclable so very eco-friendly!
- **Ultimate Option** Coated and textured board makes a fabulous WOW factor for eCommerce deliveries but be prepared for this to cost a fair bit more!

eCommerce Packaging that Smells Good

This tip is one that is rarely thought about but has such a massive impact. We’ve all walked into a boutique store and noticed their distinctive smell. Take this dimension to your online customers too with a squirt of perfume onto the inside of the box or include a perfume card of your own branded perfume. Don’t leave it to the smell of cardboard, everyone’s packaging smells like that!

Conclusion

We think eCommerce packaging is behind the times. It’s a much more vital part of the marketing mix than we realise and we see more and more stores improving it to make themselves different from their competitors. Postal packaging has changed roles from a means of protecting products from bumps and bashes to becoming integrated into the marketing mix.