Corrugated Design for eCommerce; Retail; and Retail Ready Packaging
Leave a CommentRetail packaging has many functions. It needs to protect the product through the challenges of distribution, reinforce your branded message and stimulate the impulse buy. Our experienced team of packaging professionals are ready to help bring your packaging challenges to life!
Corrugated Design Best Practices for eCommerce Packaging Design
The right design execution, both graphic and structural, can influence a consumer’s decision to buy the product, and it can enhance their experience with it. Here are three of the primary considerations when designing a package:
- Make Sure It Fits the Product: Packaging should be no larger than necessary. Responsible design execution will reduce the amount of internal fillers (waste), thus reducing weight and lowering shipping costs. Less packaging allows customers to have a seamless experience with minimal hassle to dispose of the packaging for recycling.
- Make the Branding Stand Out: Graphic design execution is essential to ensure your branding is instantly recognizable. That specific branding can be printed directly on the shipping container, the retail package, or the tape that’s used to seal the box.
- Create a Memorable Unboxing Experience: The use of two-sided printing, including the use of gloss and matte varnishes, can create an engaging graphic presentation. This, along with an appropriate box style and strategic packing will enhance the unboxing experience and encourage customers to create unboxing videos to share their experience on social media. Unboxing videos can introduce your products to countless people you might not have been able to reach otherwise. You can enjoy free word-of-mouth advertising from influencers who share their experience with their followers.
Corrugated Design Best Practices for Retail Ready Packaging
Retail-ready packaging can be an art and a science. Research on consumer behavior gives us a roadmap of best practices for designing your package:
- Leverage Your Brand: Many iconic brands are recognizable just by color. Some companies become closely associated with the color of their logo and branding. For example, UPS is brown, Budweiser and Coke are red. Leveraging color as part of your branded messaging is essential to the success of your packaging in the retail space. Departing from a consistent branded direction will confuse your target consumer at the store level.
- Maximize the function of design: Your packaging challenge crosses many disciplines, from supply chain to stimulating the impulse buy. Successful execution will compliment distribution requirements, attract the consumer, and provide a positive brand experience while providing a respectful total cost of ownership solution.
- Less is More: While all of your product’s features are important, you only have the consumer’s attention for less than 3 seconds in the store. Don’t clutter your message. The graphic focus needs to attract the consumer. The fine details can be placed on the back of the package or as an insert the consumer can read after the sale.
Corrugated Packaging Design Printing Techniques at Progress Container & Display
At Progress Container & Display, we offer a range of options for packaging graphic design printing, including:
- Flexographic Printing: This high-speed process traditionally works best with graphic elements and images that are vector files (non-photo). However, our new Gӧpfert RDC Evolution HBL 8-color printer/die cutter offers the highest quality flexo direct print in the world, allowing us to covert some higher volume lithographic print to direct flexographic print, creating a more cost-effective solution. The Gopfert is great for eCommerce as the machine prints 1 color on the inside for special messaging opportunities when consumers open their packaging. Flexo printing’s speed makes it a popular and economical choice for large orders.
- Litho Mount Printing: This process involves printing on a litho label that is mounted on double-faced corrugated. Litho mount is perfect for photo-quality printed packaging, whether you need it to cover the full box or a portion as a spot label. It is excellent for elevating your packaging with foil stamping, embossing, spot gloss, or other embellishments. Litho mount is more cost-effective for graphic-intensive, high volume orders.
- Digital Printing: Digital offers exceptional print options and provides higher-quality graphics than flexo, but it is better suited for lower volumes, variable print, or if designs change frequently.
Progress Container & Display Makes eCommerce and Retail Packaging Design Simple
Since 1971, we’ve been providing packaging solutions in Georgia and throughout the country. With ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 certifications, we’re committed to upholding the highest standards for quality and sustainability, and we stay at the forefront of new technology and equipment so we can offer our clients the best the industry has to offer.
Contact us to learn more about packaging design and all the customized solutions you need to help your product stand out.