The pandemic has provided a lot of challenges for business and consumers, but the ecommerce channel has risen up to this challenge. With more being at home and ordering online, ecommerce has experienced some of the most unprecedented growth, going from single-digit sales to almost half of all goods being this. So what does this mean for you as a retailer? Well first and foremost if you’re not already someone who is using ecommerce for your products, it’s better to look into this but also, you should start to redesign the produces that you have for this type of distribution. The containers are “coddled” from the moment they’re off the production line, are palletized, then loaded up into trucks, and you reach the distribution center before finding their way to the store, then of course, they are placed on shelves, then put in a cart, and then brought home.
However, when it comes to ecommerce products, it’s a bit more rigorous, which is where they may be more lightweight, and there is a chance that more damage may happen. Ecommerce products aren’t immune to forces, so it could break on the way there. Then of course, there is the “chargebacks” which occur. If packaging is added to this, amazon will charge back the cost to you, and with margins being thin, this can wipe out profits if you’re not careful, which is why it’s important to have proper packaging design.
Then there is the possibility that the retailers will expect packages to pass different tests before they get the passing grade, and for a lot of companies designing this is then put on the backburner, and while a percentage of the sales does come from the pandemic, there has bene a shift into purchasing this, which is much higher than before. So if you’re someone who is looking to possibly change the way you handle ecommerce, then you should first and foremost look at the packaging before you continue with the ecommerce type of life. This is because there is a permanent shift in the way goods are inevitably purchased. If you decide to ignore this heed, and instead just continue on the main path that you’re going, you’re going to probably be left behind.
So the next step, as a retailer, is to look at the types of packaging that you’re using, and of course, how you as a customer can properly add this to the repertoire. The best things to do is to make sure that first and foremost, your packaging fits the type of shipping you’re going to be doing. The second thing, is to make sure that you’re handling the right branding that goes along with this, changing and manipulating that in order to handle and optimize all of this. From there, you want to make sur that there is proper branding, and from there, you add the materials to the packaging and branding.
You also should look at whether or not the types of packaging is good for consumers. There are a lot of people who do struggle with making sure that they offer the best results to customers, and because of this, they end up missing out on some good types of people in their audience. So what you need to do, as a brand representative, is to make sure that your packaging design not only fits the ecommerce world, but also is good enough that, if you do decide to work on this even more, you’re not getting chargebacks from people as a result of poor packaging not optimized for ecommerce.
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