Important Aspects of Retail Packaging
Today retail packaging has gained far greater significance than it was a decade ago. With business environment becoming hypercompetitive and with different brands vying for customer attention, packaging has become an important aspect of selling. Hence, the onus is upon the product manufacturers to come up with not only quality products but also smart packaging solutions.
In the retail industry, the sale of any product depends largely on the presentation of a product. No customer would buy a badly presented product that fails to attract his or her attention even if it is a quality product.Thus, packaging plays a very crucial role in products finding their way from the shelves to the baskets of the customers. Companies spend billions of dollars on advertisements and other marketing campaigns and even succeed in gaining consumer attention but once inside the shop it is not the advertisements but the packaging that acts as the final trigger.
Today’ consumers are time pressured and therefore do not have time to pick and choose. As they navigate through the store, with hundreds of products staring at them waiting to be picked, their attention falls only onthose products that provide a clear picture as to its use and benefits in a split second. Branding helps companies to carve a distinctive identity of their own; this in turn helps customers to distinguish them from their competitors. Similarly, distinctive and unique packaging helps manufacturers to make their products stand out from the rest.
Thus, presentation is just one aspect of retail packaging. Similarly, several other aspects are there that the product manufacturers need to be concerned about. The following are some of the important aspects of retail packaging.
Protection
The contents in the package should be protected from temperature, compression, vibration, shock, moisture, water and so on.
Barrier Protection
When packing food items, oxygen absorbers are placed to prolong the shelf life of food. However, oxygen absorbers can work effectively only if the packaging is done perfectly. The packaging should be such that it provides effective barrier from water vapor, oxygen, dust and so on.
Modified Atmosphere Packaging
In the case of fruits, vegetables, meat, meat products, and seafood, the fresh state needs to be extended. In such cases, the packaging should be such that it delays the natural deterioration of the product. Hence, the food products need to be packed using technologies such as gas flushing and compensated vacuum.
In today’s highly competitive market environment, organizations find themselves torn between meeting deadlines and other business activities. And this affects other important activities such as packaging products for retail distribution. Hence, companies must seek the help of custom retail packaging service providers that provide services such as packaging products to custom label printing, source tagging to bar coding.