Why packaging matters in a customer-centric world

When considering the growing importance of packaging, it is crucial to explore the forces that drive consumer behaviour. After all, packaging not only directly influences product satisfaction, but also shopping behaviour and consumers’ purchasing decision. Packaging is clearly crucial to leaving a lasting impression. Therefore, the food industry must understand the motivations of consumers’ in order to identify their requirements, find out how to improve the customers’ shopping experience and ultimately win or strengthen their brand loyalty.

Judging a book by its cover
Aesthetics is an essential attribute in ensuring a product has customer appeal. Eye catching aesthetics will ultimately help to attract the attention of potential customers.

It is often said you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but shoppers often judge a product by its ‘cover’ equivalent: its packaging. How a product is packaged may be what attracts the consumer to take a look at the product as is sits on store shelves. For this reason, many companies conduct research on colour schemes, ease of use, designs and types of product packaging that will appeal to its intended consumer. Careful design of packaging often leads to a desire to learn more about the product inside. As a result, innovative packaging design has become a priority, as growers and supermarkets are realising that appealing, accessible packaging equals increased sales.

Stand out from the crowd
Another key role packaging plays is in enabling one brand to differentiate itself from another. Company names, logos and colour scheme enable consumers to identify a product as it sits among its competitors on store shelves. A change in packaging can alter consumer perception of a brand. This shows the important role packaging plays in the promotion of a product and helping to establish brand recognition.

Protection and preservation
Without packaging, there would be significantly more food wasted, with statistics revealing that a third of all food produced in the world ends up as waste, costing consumers globally more than £259 billion per year.

Packaging has a vital role to play in the preservation of a product and also protecting the product from the point of production through to the point of use, helping to maintain the product in its original condition and to aid the distribution and storage of the product itself. Innovative packaging solutions can increase shelf life, reduce food waste and improve product consistency, while new packaging materials also provide new opportunities to improve efficiencies.

In my opinion, one of the most important aspects is avoiding product damage as this leads to increased costs for replacing goods including manufacturing and labour associated with processing the replacement. When a product has to be replaced and re-distributed, and the original damaged item returned and disposed of, the product's carbon footprint multiplies.

Packaging enables consumers to get more from the food they purchase and make financial and environmental savings through wasting less. It is therefore essential for the packaging industry to play its part in supporting the Government to explain to consumers that wasting food is a serious environmental issue; one that is greater than throwing away the few grams of packaging used to ensure the food arrived safely and undamaged.

Keeping up with expectations
Today’s customers expect quality design and functionality from the products they purchase. Those within the industry that respond to this demand by working with packaging suppliers to find innovative solutions to changing consumer demand will inevitably thrive.

For more information:
Naomi Ritchie
Berkeley PR
Tel: +44 01454 629 741
Email: naomi.ritchie@berkeleypr.co.uk
berkeleypr.co.uk