3 Companies Enhancing the Customer Experience with Packaging
What was the last thing you ordered online? Whatever it was, the arrival of the package probably excited you.
Call it the evergreen beauty of e-commerce: the thrill of unboxing a gift is no longer limited to holidays or special occasions. But now that we can order nearly anything online and have it in our hands in a few days, how long can brands run on the fumes of instant gratification? Happily for e-merchants, packaging is an area where brands can heighten brand awareness and shape the customer experience.
These three companies are enhancing the customer experience with packaging.
Warby Parker
There wasn’t anything inherently exciting about an online glasses company until Warby Parker compelled consumers with simplicity and convenience. A key contributor to Warby Parker’s rise is its packaging. The sturdy box, efficient packing, engaging copy and durability of the glass case communicates sleekness, quality and reliability. Opening a Warby Parker package is a tremendously satisfying exercise for many consumers.
Happy Socks
Between the whims of eccentric-seeking business professionals, Millennial hipsters and fashionable teenagers, colorful custom socks are on the rise. Happy Socks could have followed suit with traditional e-commerce packaging practices by showcasing the vibrancy of their products after the unboxing process. However, they chose to make the outside of their boxes resemble the contents inside, and in an environmentally friendly way. Each sock order comes in an appropriately sized custom box, made of either paper or recyclable cardboard with customer designs often reflecting the style of the sock shipment, printed on the package. Each sock pair is kept together with a recyclable tie that can also be used to keep pairs of socks together in the wash.
Method
Method was one of the first companies to produce eco-conscious cleaning products on a large scale. The contents of its dish soap, laundry detergent, hand soap and other products aren’t the only things that stand out, though. Method’s products stand out in any grocery store cleaning aisle with its soft curves and eye-catching colors juxtaposing the typically bulky shapes offered by other big-brand cleaning retailers. Method brings the same excellence to their e-commerce packaging, recently giving its sustainable customer base another reason to love receiving its products: using ocean plastic along with post-consumer recycled plastic to make its bottles.
Developing Exceptional Branded Packaging
You want your package to enhance the actual product. This can only be done when the packaging itself causes the consumer to feel something, whether that’s anticipation, humor, trust, satisfaction, or any number of other sentiments that equate to customer loyalty and a positive long-term business relationship.
This is why delivering packaging that compels consumers goes beyond customizing a box with brand colors and throwing on a sleek logo. For packages to really heighten the customer experience, they need to showcase memorable branding, be durable to protect the product, exercise efficiency in how it’s packed and be made of eco-friendly materials.
Depending on what you sell, you’ll more or less have your work cut out for you. There’s a solution to every problem, though. Whether you’re planning how to start a furniture store online or strategizing how you’ll become the biggest purveyor of online video games, the tenets of excellent packaging remain the same.
These three companies enhancing the customer experience with packaging should serve as inspiration for your design initiatives. When you develop your own creative flair, customers have one more reason to think of your brand and buy from you in the future. If you’re looking to make creating packaging and boxes, look to Custom Boxes Now to create fully printed packaging today.
