For online customers, e-commerce packaging is mostly the only way by which they can interact with your brand. This creates an opportunity for the brands to make an ever-lasting impression, stand out from their competitors, and improve the customer experience at the last step of shopping.
An astonishing e-commerce packaging can also help your business to motivate customers for repeat purchases and share the products along with the packaging or unboxing videos on social media videos.
Importance of E-commerce Packaging:
As per a survey, the customers who shop luxury items are more likely to share the item on social media channels, with 38% agreeing they’ve done so.
On the popular social media platform Instagram, the hashtag “unboxing” has been used more than 1.3 million times. It is clear that opening packages are a very delightful experience for the customers which they also like to share. For businesses, it is a great opportunity to build more reputation of their brand.
Current Packaging Trends in E-commerce:
It is necessary for the business whose brand value matters a lot to be on the latest customers’ trends and opinions. For e.g. as the consumers are becoming cautious for the environment, the disliking for wasteful, oversized packaging has been increased and they prefer sustainable packaging. This sustainability is more important for young shoppers, with two-thirds of 18-29-year-olds saying it impacts their purchasing decisions.
12 Ways to Make Your Customers Feel Special:
Now we will go through the core of the article, i.e. 12 ideas to delight your customers:
1. Stylish Internal Designs:
L’Occitane is a French beauty brand popular for its thoughtful packaging. The buyers will receive a plain brown box opening on which they will find their products in a bright yellow and white pattern along with a thank you note and a yellow tissue paper. It is a classy and stylish packaging that reinforces the brand image and perception of quality.
2. Ask customers for reviews with stickers:
Knowing the feedback from customers is vital for the success of an e-commerce company. So why do not ask for a review from your customers before they forget? Stickers are a popular medium to ask for feedback. They can communicate many marketing messages such as thank-yous, brand logos, and Twitter handles. Check out these star-studded, personalized stickers which request customer reviews.
3. Use reversible packaging:
The previously discussed L’Occitane’s packaging has designs on the inside but the Charapak’s reversible boxes can be turned inside-out. Thus, customers can use it again as gift-wrapping. It makes the customers happy and they find it more sustainable than traditional gift-wrap.
4. Sustainable design usage:
An Italian brand Portrait Eyewear is a perfect epitome of sustainable e-commerce packaging. Their odd-shaped cardboard boxes don’t require any type of adhesive to hold them together. Thus, the customers can easily flatten them and give them for recycling after use. It is also made from entirely recycled materials.
5. Reusable e-commerce packaging:
Reusable shipping bags are getting highly popular especially in the clothing industry as they don’t rely on bulky and protective packaging. Popular brands such as H&M have adopted this new approach of sustainable e-commerce packaging. H&M even offers discounts to customers who return the bags by post or in-store.
6. Make packaging irresistible to throw:
Rituals, a popular cosmetics company packed its products in attractive, reusable boxes. This gets rid of the wrapping paper. The customers retain the boxes as a keepsake for storing items. In a bid to use more sustainable packaging, the company made its boxes more compact and replaces plastic with biodegradable alternatives.
7. Try Selling Refills:
Since customers can’t tolerate any unnecessary e-commerce packaging, brand owners need to rethink how they can reduce their packaging constituents. If you can’t cut your logistics carbon footprints, probably your product packaging can.
Hairstory brand is very conservative for its packaging and highly passionate about the environment. It demonstrates this by selling refills of its shampoo. Pouches can save on packaging, as well as shipping costs.
8. Use embossed metallic stickers:
If you are using minimalistic packaging for reducing costs or increasing sustainability, you can use embossed stickers to add a sense of quality and luxury for e-commerce packages.
9. Put free stuff in your packages:
Nearly half of the online customers feel good if they will get freebies in their packages. Whether they are stickers, tiny magnets, or free samples, it will surprise and delight your customers. This technique definitely increases customer loyalty and motivates them to make repetitive purchases. Makeup brand Glossier provides free stickers while L’Occitane is known for including free samples.
10. Use custom packing tape:
Branding should be demonstrated even by the tiniest of the packaging material. The most sustainable, cost-effective, and popular way of sending products in the e-commerce industry is brown cardboard boxes. (The brown cardboard boxes contain more recycled material than any other type of boxes). It doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice branding. Either you can use your stamps on the cardboard or use a custom branding packaging tape.
11. Show creativity in your packing slips:
Although most customers want more sustainable packaging, many customers still prefer packing slips and pre-printed product return labels too so brainstorm how to use these elements for your brand promotion while delivering the utmost customer service. Some brands have been taking the opportunity to share doodles with their customers.
12. Showcase your brand:
Last but not the least, brands believe to communicate their voice and value at every opportunity, in their e-commerce packaging as well.
Dollar Shave Club boxes drop in their cheeky brand message at every opportunity. Try to find out how you can showcase your brand values to your target audience.
Wrapping Up:
In this article, we have gone through many different ways of delighting your customers with the help of e-commerce packaging. The shopping experience starts at the e-commerce store and ends at the unboxing of the item. At Ceymox Technologies, the best e-commerce development company in India, we are having expertise in developing e-commerce stores from scratch, let us know your requirements.
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