Over the last decade the gap between independent small businesses and the giant retail corporations has been dramatically reduced. This change hasn’t been confined to the product itself or pricing but has also seen a dramatic shift in the packaging that businesses use. For years large corporations held a stranglehold on quality custom packaging due to minimum order quantities and high production costs, making it inaccessible to independent small businesses. However, in the last decade a shift in the packaging market has allowed independent small businesses, including independent start-ups, family run independent businesses, larger small independent retailers, restaurants, food service providers, online e-commerce retailers and independent specialist retailers such as cake artists and chocolatiers across the UK, to get custom boxes and packaging that will rival large retailers and household names such as Walmart, Tesco and McDonalds. Small businesses investing in their packaging and working with suppliers who offer quality, affordable custom boxes in UK are seeing huge returns on their investment as people perceive the product to be of higher value, they become more aware of your brand and even create customer loyalty, something that no amount of advertising can achieve.
The Playing Field Has Changed
The largest retailers have built their positions based on their ability to invest in brand experience across all customer touchpoints. Incorporating high quality packaging into corrugated and point of sale materials has become a well known quality indicator that smaller, independent businesses find difficult to emulate when operating on a low budget and not placing sufficient order volume with their material suppliers to negotiate differently.
The removal of price premium from printed packaging comes from a variety of angles. Digital manufacturing methods mean minimum order quantities have been halved allowing small runs of customised packaging to be purchased by businesses ordering out hundreds of units. Meanwhile online supplier platforms have done much to drive down the prices of packaging from established manufacturers, while raising quality and raising the options for customisation at affordable prices. As a result the rise of e-commerce has created an array of packaging touchpoints where small businesses can compete against larger retailers on an even footing, without being handicapped by limited shelf space or restricted distribution channels.
What emerges is a significantly more level playing field. Smaller companies that invest in creative packaging will be able to deliver brand experience equivalent to their larger competitors, within online retail — a channel where a growing proportion of UK retail spending now occurs.
Packaging for Small Businesses Is a Highly Unbalanced Competitive Tool
There are many inherent advantages to being a larger organisation in business, including deeper marketing budgets, distribution channels, supplier connections and established brand recognition. However, when it comes to packaging, smaller organisations are able to notch up something of a level playing field — and in many cases even gain the upper hand — by working faster, delivering a more personal packaging experience to customers and developing packaging solutions that better reflect their brand values than bigger, more lumbering counterparts.
Small businesses can quickly update the design of their packaging in response to customer feedback, a seasonality, change of image etc. Without the tedium of lengthy approval processes and the difficulties of co-ordinating a global supply chain, changing the packaging of a small business is fast and cost effective in a way that is genuinely beyond the remit of large organisations. This means small businesses can keep the packaging of their product fresh and up-to-date allowing it to remain relevant to current customer needs.
Whilst an interesting fact about the brand itself may be communicated through packaging, it is the authentic brand stories that small businesses can tell that will really resonate with an increasingly sceptical consumer. An independent artisan producer can perfectly communicate their craft credentials, their use of local produce and their personal business values to genuine like-minded customers through packaging. This is a real competitive advantage that packaging can highlight and amplify, not manufacture.
The Unboxing Advantage in E-commerce
As UK e-commerce continues to boom, small businesses are finding out how they can utilise packaging touchpoints in a market ripe for innovative growth. Traditionally, packaging has been one of the areas where big brands have lost out to larger retail environments — but online shopping is turning this on its head. Suddenly, packaging is the primary physical brand experience — the only physical experience in fact — that online customers receive, with product placement, in-store design and staff interaction all relegated to the online experience too.
Independent, small retailers who sell online using well designed and distinctive packaging will create more memorable brand experiences for their customers than the larger retailers who can sell at lower prices using efficient packaging systems designed for automated online fulfilment. An independent retailer packaging goods in a branded, crisp box, wrapped in coloured tissue paper and accompanied by a brief thank you note, creates a personal connection with the customer that the automated boxes and packaging from a fulfilment centre could not match regardless of budget.
Social media has elevated the value that beautiful packaging can bring. A small burst of unboxing packaging that is worth photographing creates organic marketing value, as the customer itself gets to share it with their social network. This can be particularly valuable for small businesses with low marketing budgets, as the returns to packaging investment can be ongoing and compound with every happy customer.
Kraft Packaging as a Small Business Strategy
For small businesses in the UK packaging options are varied, yet for many businesses kraft materials are a cost effective packaging solution that look as good as more expensive bespoke packaging and that communicate brand values to customers.
When small businesses source kraft paper boxes wholesale, they have access to packaging materials that exude authenticity, sustainability and craftsmanship through their inherent properties. The natural brown colour and the texture and feel of paper create instant connotations of hand-crafting, ethical sourcing and environmental responsibility. These values resonate deeply with the emerging demographics of consumers who are increasingly proactive in their choices of independent small businesses and are willing to pay a premium for quality.
Another aspect where the economics of kraft packaging suit small businesses particularly well is the cost of the base material itself. While processed white-coated materials are often expensive due to the high level of processing involved, the cost of unbleached kraft is very low. As a result, the cost per unit of high-quality packaging is very low, meaning small businesses can look at packaging in a way that larger companies may find too expensive. For unbleached kraft, a one or two-colour print creates a fabulous-looking package at a relatively low cost per unit, when compared to the cost of printing multiple colours onto more expensive white stocks.
Building Brand Recognition Through Packaging Consistency
Large corporations have a built-in advantage when it comes to brand recognition. Years of consistent, uniform presentation to thousands of customers result in powerful brand identity. However, there’s no reason why a small business can’t build similar recognition much more quickly — provided that packaging is treated as a critical aspect of brand presentation from the very start. To do this, however, packaging must be absolutely consistent from product to product and from order to order, with no variation based on product line or other considerations.
Packaging from a small business is gradually incorporated into customers’ memories of that brand, building recognition over time. Each package sent to customers represents another opportunity for visual branding to be imprinted into that customer’s memory. By consistently packaging products, small businesses build recognition that is reinforced through all touchpoints with the brand including social media, in person at markets and stalls and through word of mouth. It is lost however when packaging is sent from a business that fails to consistently brand across all touchpoints, meaning each package is instead wasted as an opportunity to connect with existing customers and to form lasting brand memories for new ones.
Key elements to maintain consistently across all packaging:
- Brand colours incorporated into all packaging formats and products
- Logo placed in established and familiar positions on all products so that customers know where to find it
- Font style and size kept consistent across all packaging
- Material choices analysed to ensure uniform texture throughout product lines
- Finish applied equally on all products rather than tailoring finish to specific product lines
Practical Steps to Make the Packaging Transition Smoother
For small businesses wanting to use packaging as a competitive tool, this is a good time to start. How to do it without disrupting an already busy small business is key, as is avoiding commitments to packaging innovation before testing packaging ideas with customers for whom you are offering unique value.
A practical transition approach:
- Carry out an audit of the current packaging and point out any inconsistencies, any missed brand opportunities and packaging materials that are working against the positioning of the product
- Define packaging objectives by clarifying whether packaging is primarily a brand building activity, an opportunity to enhance customer experience, to add sustainability credentials or to reduce cost
- Research supplier options by getting quotes from specialist packaging suppliers rather than going for generic packaging supplied by your office supply company or shipping carrier
- Test packaging prior to production by ordering samples before placing production orders and testing packaging with actual product under shipping and handling test conditions
- Prioritize packaging with the highest volume for maximum impact by organising efforts from highest volume items down to ensure the biggest return on investment based on customer impressions per pound of packaging spent
- Actively solicit customer feedback by monitoring social media, soliciting feedback directly and tracking repeat purchase rates especially after packaging changes have been made
- Iterate by testing packaging options and refining or changing them based on actual customer feedback over purely internal preference
The Long-Term Brand Building Payoff
Packages developed for small businesses with a view to optimising the way that they are presented to their customers from an early stage in development become valuable assets — one of the main ways to create brand value. A well-designed and implemented packaging identity creates customer preference, which over time can generate value by giving the small business competitive advantage over other marketing efforts in terms of longevity, especially in terms of price resilience.
Small businesses that have grown from start-ups into brand recognised icons over the last decade all agree that effective and professional packaging is one of the key elements of building a brand, not an afterthought. It is where brand values come to life, customer relationships are built through physical experience and how a small independent retailer can demonstrate enough value to keep customers coming back over more convenient and cheaper alternatives offered by larger retailers.
