The main concern in designing product packages is protecting the merchandise from the factory to the ultimate consumer. It is particularly true for goods whose sales are made from display models. When customers select products from shelves, packaging becomes an important promotional tool. Sales are enhanced by visible, informative, emotionally appealing, and workable packages.
High-visibility packages tend to be easy to find when displayed on store shelves. Package designs with good informational value tell the customer what the package contains at a glance. Packages also serve to satisfy emotional needs.
Packages should be workable, which means that containers protect the product and are easy to open and reclose, readily store, and have utility for secondary uses once the item is used up.
What is Packaging?
Packaging ”consists of all the activities of designing and producing the container or wrapper for a product. A package is an actual container.
Thus packaging is a business function, and a package is an item. Packaging can also be defined as the activities related to designing and producing a container that protects the product and enhances its marketability. The package is a means by which the core product is enhanced to become an augmented product.
What Are The Different Levels of Package?
A package can include three levels: the primary package, the secondary package, and the shipping package.
The primary package is the product’s immediate container. Thus the bottle holding paracetamol syrup is the primary package.
The secondary package refers to materials that protect the primary package and is discarded when the product is about to be used. The cardboard box containing the bottle of paracetamol syrup is a secondary package and provides additional protection and promotion opportunities.
The shipping package refers to storage, identification, or transportation packaging. Thus, a shipping package is a corrugated box carrying six dozen of a particular brand of paracetamol syrup.
What Are The Functions Performed By The Packaging?
Packaging has a functional value. A package holds, protects, transports, and stores the physical product. Packaging’s functional aspect is critical since the product would otherwise be undesirable to both middlemen and customers.
The package should also be convenient to stores by being stackable and not taking up excessive shelf space. A package also identifies the product. A distinctive package helps consumers identify and separate it from competing items.
It also serves a promotional purpose. The intense competition encourages marketing executives to look at the package as a possible way to distinguish the product. Packaging has promise as a competitive weapon because:
- It is a relatively inexpensive way to make a product distinct. Creating and using a unique package can be less costly than extensive advertising and personal selling efforts.
- In a highly self-service economy, products have to sell themselves on retail shelves. A distinctive package catches the consumers’ attention and increases the possibility of purchase.
- It can denote status and product quality. The size, shape, color, or material used can enhance the other attributes of a product.
- The package can improve the product’s usefulness. A good package can enhance functionality and social value since a product is much more than its physical components.
What are the Considerations in Packaging Decision
Marketers should consider many factors as they contemplate packaging decisions. One major packaging consideration is its costs. Although various packaging materials, processes, and designs are available, some are rather expensive.
Determining Customers’ Willingness to Pay for Packaging
Though present-day buyers are willing to pay more for improved packages, there are limits. Consequently, marketers should try to determine how many customers are willing to pay for it through research.
Impact of Packaging Unit Decisions on Demand
They should also decide whether to package the product singly or in multiple units. Multiple packages increase demand because it increases the amount of the product available at the consumption point.
Packaging Strategies for Infrequently Used Products
Products used infrequently should not come in multiple packages since customers do not like to tie up their money or store these products for a longer time. This type of packaging can, however, make products easier to handle and store; and special price offers.
The Role of Package Design Continuity
Additionally, it may increase consumer acceptance of a product by encouraging the customer to try it quite several times.
Developing packages within the organization, marketers should consider how much continuity among package designs is desirable.
Promotional Role of Packaging
To promote an overall company image, a company may decide that all packages are similar or include one major element of the design. This approach is termed family packaging.
Creating a Desirable Image through Package Design
This approach is used only for lines of products.
In making packaging decisions, the marketer should consider the promotional role of packaging. The package can attract customers’ attention and convince them to try it.
Through verbal and nonverbal symbols, the package can inform potential buyers about the contents, features, uses, advantages, and hazards of the product. The firm can create a desirable image of its product through the choice of color, design, shape, and texture of the package.
Factors to Consider in Package Design
Since the package has a promotional value, the designer must consider its size, shape, texture, color, and graphics when designing it. The package must be large enough to hold the item.
Packaging Size and Visual Perception
Marketers, in some cases, may want a package to appear taller. A package may appear taller if thin vertical lines are used in it.
Customers tend to consider taller packaged items as bigger. Gender difference is sometimes considered in determining the shape of the package.
Gender Considerations in Package Shape
It is found from different studies that angular shapes connote masculinity, while rounded, curved shapes and soft, fuzzy textures connote femininity.
Importance of Color in Packaging
The color of the package is also important. Color perception involves subjective judgments. While some products have a wide range of accepted colors, others have a limited range of colors.
Selecting Colors for Packaging and Emotional Impact
This should be considered in selecting the color of the package. In selecting the color, marketers should decide whether a particular color will evoke positive or negative feelings in the target market.
Factors Contributed to Packaging’s Growing Use as a Marketing Tool
Historically, of course, packaging was viewed in a very narrow context. Present-day marketers use packaging as a competitive weapon.
They appreciate the role packaging plays in a highly competitive environment. Packages, if designed appropriately, can create value for the customers as well as for the marketers.
Customers get convenience from a well-designed package; marketers can use it as an important promotional tool.
The following factors have contributed to packaging’s growing importance to marketers:
Growth of self-service retailing
In the developed world, an increasing number of goods are sold on a self-service basis where customers get little sales aid. The package performs here the functions of a salesperson.
If designed attractively, it will inform customers of the product’s existence, describe its features, convince them, and execute sales.
Increased consumer affluence
Consumers around the world are becoming affluent day by day. As consumers become affluent, they become more demanding.
They look for convenience, are interested in an attractive appearance, and rely on dependability and prestige in packaging. Recognizing these, marketers now take a keen interest in packaging and use it as a competitive tool.
Relation with company and brand image
A well-designed package can help customers recognize a particular brand and the company. Therefore, companies rely increasingly on packaging to ensure customers’ recognition of the brand and the company.
Increased rate of innovation
This is the era of technological development that offers many innovational opportunities. Marketers can use this opportunity to offer customers new, convenient packages and pull them towards the company’s products.
