Understanding Retail Packaging

Packaging is often a customer’s first impression of a product. Packaging presents an opportunity to capture a potential customer’s attention, raise brand awareness, tell a story, and stand out from competitors.

A great package combines eye-popping visual design elements (logo, colors, typography, etc.), packaging supplies, and brand messaging elements like taglines and product descriptions. These descriptions can be critical, as they must be short and to the point to catch the customer’s attention quickly and effectively.

Ideally, creative package design will draw eyes to the package itself, raising sales. Think about the last time you were grocery shopping. The cereal aisle may have been overwhelming at times. Thus, you the consumer naturally deferred to a product packaged in an eye-catching way.

How one picks a product off a shelf is often an unconscious decision. As such, eye-popping product packages are often the difference between which products a potential buyer selects.

In a retail setting, the design and aesthetic of the package itself, the shelf appearance, and how it opens, often referred to as the ‘unboxing experience,’ has also become a crucial part of creating compelling packaging.

Packaging can be essential to businesses that use e-commerce, especially ones that operate only online, as the product package is the customer’s first physical interaction with the brand. Frequently, YouTube can even help these brand experiences, as those unpackaging’s can happen live or later posted online.