CPP INSIGHTS - APRIL 2023

THE KEY CONCERNS FOR E-COMMERCE PACKAGING

Labelling is the Matter: In the world of online selling, the importance of packaging and labelling is often overlooked. The quality of the product is important but how it is packaged plays a huge role. Packaging and labelling play a critical role in the first physical impression of your product on customers. Let's take a look at the importance of packaging and labelling in the eCommerce industry.

The biggest touchpoint in ecommerce? When the order finally arrives at their doorstep. This makes the post-sale period critical to your customer retention efforts. Your customers have been eagerly awaiting their purchase for days or even weeks. This makes a memorable brand experience upon delivery the key to creating a lasting impression.

Decreases Return Rate: Whether you sell electronics or food items, you must not neglect the impression packaging and labelling make on the consumers if you wish to get repeat business. This is true for both offline and online sales.

In a retail shop, sharp packaging catches the customers' attention from other products on the shelf. For online sales, the customers get a pleasant unpackaging experience.

As such, packaging plays a critical role in deciding the condition in which the product reaches the customer. First impressions are crucial. Poorly packed and labelled products can increase the return rates. You may also receive bad reviews.

How the customer receives the products, informs the customers about your product quality and the care that went into manufacturing the product. Aptly packaged and labelled products can increase the trust customers have for your product and build anticipation as they unpackage the product.

Brand Experience: Keeping packaging and labelling consistent throughout all the products helps to keep brand identity consistent. Brands should ensure that they share the same information through all the mediums to ensure customer familiarity with the product's quality. This also increases product recognizability in both the online and offline market.

You can also think about whether the packaging and labelling for your products should be the same in the online and offline markets You can think of different or basic packaging for online products as they have additional packaging – cardboard or corrugated boxes.

However, using different packaging may incur a higher cost. Or you may miss an opportunity to reinforce your brand. You can research what makes the consumers buy products online and add the same value to your product packaging and labelling.

Packaging Design

Principles Adopting the best practices for product packaging and labelling is imperative. Your packaging design must communicate the functioning of the products and services. Therefore, your design should use bold colours and vibrant images. Tell your customers how your product will fulfill their needs

You can also use sustainable packaging or eco-friendly packaging for your products Most consumers are becoming environmentally conscious, and thus, they prefer buying products that come in sustainable packaging. You can consider making your packaging fully recyclable or biodegradable.

The design of your label is also important. Determining the design of the label and keeping it consistent throughout all the packaging is crucial An additional label, i e , a shipping label, is added in the eCommerce industry. The product delivery highly depends on the shipping label.

Hand-written shipping labels can be tedious and time-consuming. You can print them. You can also think of customized packaging labels; they can help increase brand awareness by standing you out from other companies.

In the end, we would like to say that don't package or label your products just for the sake of it. They must be created in such a way that they protect your products and make their shipping convenient. The packaging and labelling need not be so sophisticated but must fulfill their objectives. If you take care of packaging and labelling, your business is bound to grow and prosper!

What is Paperboard Packaging?

Paperboard packaging is one of the most commonly used packaging materials used by a majority of sellers. The latest advancements in quality, packaging design, and digital printing have made it a preferable option among business owners. It is a sustainable packaging option as well.

Biodegradable Material: Paperboard packaging is a more biodegradable option when compared to other types of packaging. This means it can be decomposed quickly when exposed to yeast and bacteria. Also, paperboard packaging is easily recyclable - it is one of the world's most recyclable materials.

Can Be Printed On Easily: One of the advantages of using paperboard packaging is that you can print on it directly. Thus, you can easily print your logo and other marketing designs on the material to increase your brand visibility.

Versatility: You can combine paper with other packaging materials conveniently to get unique and aesthetically beautiful packaging materials for your products.

Many consumers believe that a product with paper packaging is of premium quality. Notably, the outer packaging of a product influences the customers' purchasing decisions. Similarly, when used as outer packaging material while shipping a product, like corrugated boxes, it can lead to a positive unboxing experience for your customers. So, paperboard packaging also has a positive public perception.

Why Focus on Product Packaging?

Wondering why you should start focusing on product packaging? Let me give me you some reasons:

Brand Recall: Your package should be so good that the minute customers see it, they should be able to recognize your brand. For example Amazon, the black box with the ‘Amazon’ written in yellow is something you will definitely recognize.

Customer Retention: Being a business owner, you know how difficult it is to lock a client. You have to constantly persuade them, advertise, market, keep following up until you can finally convince him/her to buy your product. But, with good packaging, this effort surely lessens. And by packaging, we do not just mean getting fancy but stronger too. The packaging is capable of retaining your customer and saving you a lot of money.

Helps Maintain Brand Loyalty: Give them good packaging and they are never leaving. Customers are suckers for a good delivery experience. The appearance of the product instantly allures them which is why the Indian eCommerce store, Happily Unmarried packages all its products in a brown box with their brand design on it.

Improves Conversion Rates: If you feel your competitors are getting ahead of you even though your product is better, consider changing the packaging. Studies reveal 38% of customers will shop with you again based on the packaging of the last ordered product. Instead of spending money on futile advertising efforts, consider changing the look of your shipped product and you will see the difference. Enforces Brand Identity: Your product should portray the characteristics of your brand Just by looking at the packaging, customers should be able to tell it is your brand. The Indian eCommerce store called Chumbak is the perfect example for this. This brand makes products with quirky one-liners. The packaging of this brand completely stands out, making it easy to recognize and differentiate the brand from its competitors

Package Inserts – Best Promotional Tool: Package inserts are the key to excellent customer servicing. This is something that goes unnoticed by most brands. Package inserts can be in the form of handwritten notes or discounts. You can also include small presents that go well with the product that has been ordered This makes your customer feel that you really care about them and thus helps in improving brand loyalty. 20 Dresses, an Indian eCommerce retail store, always sends handwritten notes along with small presents for their customers! This is one technique that will never fail!

Tips for Effective Product Packaging

Here are a few tips that you must keep in mind while for effective product packaging

Consistency: Always be consistent with the colors, font, logo and design. Packaging is important for brand recognition and brand recall, so if you keep changing the package your customers and potential customers will get confused and never be able to remember your product.

Convenience: Packaging your goods conveniently is very important. The packaging not only has to be sturdy but should also be easy to access. WriteyBoard is one online brand that has completely revolutionized product packaging. They send across their products in the box that is shaped like a Marker. This cylindrical box can hold a whiteboard which can also be carried around easily.

Attractive Colors: Choose your product box carefully. Bright colours like red, blue, yellow, green instantly catch the customer’s eye. In case, you want to go with a traditional brown box, then you can experiment with tapes just the way Snapdeal & Flipkart do.

Clear Communication: Name of the ingredients, instructions, manufacturing date, expiry date all of this should be written clearly on the Product. This helps build trust between you and the customer. Transparency is the key to maintain long lasting relationships.

So, now you know how important it is to design a good package for your product. So follow these simple product packaging tips and watch your sales touch the sky!

Common Mistake | Forgetting to brand your packaging :

What’s a cake without icing? Branding packaging is an essential way to spread reach, but a common packaging mistake is to skip the customization of the shipping package. Even a simple custom label or branded packaging tape can spread your corporate story Give thought to how your package can sell more products

There are additional costs for custom-branding your shipping packages, but as brand recognition increases, there will be a corresponding jump in sales. Small touches like including a thank you card with a coupon are also smart ways to keep the customer coming back for more

Branded Packaging in E-commerce Matters

The post-purchase experience is an area that is often neglected in e-commerce. Branded packaging is more costly than using stock shipping boxes. So many e-commerce businesses feel that it’s simply not worth the investment.

After all, if your customer has already made a purchase, why does it matter how the package looks when it arrives? But if brand owners only view packaging as a means to get your goods from A to B, they are missing out on a huge opportunity to influence brand perception. E-commerce businesses have few touchpoints with their audience compared to their brick-and-mortar counterparts. So, it’s vital that online brands take every opportunity to build a personal connection with their customers. The biggest touchpoint in ecommerce? When the order finally arrives at their doorstep. This makes the post-sale period critical to your customer retention efforts. Your customers have been eagerly awaiting their purchase for days or even weeks. This makes a memorable brand experience upon delivery the key to creating a lasting impression.

Using branded packaging in e-commerce is an easy way to give your customers an unboxing experience that secures their loyalty to your brand. Once an online fad, unboxing content has become an absolute goldmine for marketing professionals. By encouraging customers to share their brand experiences online, it creates a ton of free publicity. As consumers express a greater desire for unique and engaging retail experiences, unboxing and branding have become inseparable. A plain shipping box simply is not enough. Why? Because it’s impossible to have a well-crafted unboxing with no brand presence. Your identity as a retailer is what turns the exercise into meaningful brand storytelling, which is why branded packaging in e-commerce is a vital ingredient to creating an unboxing experience that encourages repeat business

Branded E-commerce Packaging Fills the Gap in the Experience

In e-commerce, the relationship between the brand and the customer is entirely virtual. The tangibility offered by brick-and-mortar stores is difficult to replicate in online retail. This is where a memorable unboxing experience is vital to building a personal connection with your customer.

Enhance Brand Image: In the age of Instagram and Pinterest, branded e-commerce packaging has been perfected by luxury brands Why? Because it’s a marketing strategy that justifies premium pricing. When a retailer charges more for a product, they need to attract customers in ways that their competitors will struggle to match. Moreover, priceconscious consumers will expect that a higher price point entitles them to ‘value-added’ extras Branded packaging is one of those powerful value-added extras that signifies to your customers that they have invested in a premium-level experience. It’s appealing because it feels exclusive they are buying a lifestyle, not just a product. Providing a premium unboxing experience massively shapes your customers’ perception of your brand By making a purchase from your brand feel like a high-value investment, you giving yourself a real edge over competitors.

Retain Customers: The art of retaining customers in e-commerce is tricky, to say the least. This is even truer for smaller and less-established brands. According to Forbes, 6080% of customers do not return to shop with the same brands, even if the customer experience was positive for consumers to choose from. There are so many brands for consumers to choose from that they rarely go back to the same place twice. Just delivering the goods in a timely manner isn’t enough. If your brand interactions have no ‘ wow factor,’ they are unlikely to make repeat purchases. But retaining customers is more than just good business it creates a much more sustainable marketing strategy. Acquiring new customers can cost up to five times more than retaining your existing base.

Branded packaging in e-commerce doesn’t simply make products look nice it’s a customer retainment strategy in its own right. To build lasting brand loyalty, you need to show that you are willing to go the extra mile. The time investment that goes into creating an attractive unboxing is a sure sign of a brand that values its customers.

Creating a memorable brand experience starts with crafting your narrative. How do you want your customers to receive your product? As seen by the unboxing craze, branded packaging in e-commerce provides a massive opportunity to increase your audience share. Use it as a part of your marketing strategy, not as an afterthought.

Easy & Affordable Branded Options

There are many types of branded e-commerce packaging to choose from when building your unboxing experience. If you want to create that ‘ wow factor’ when your customer opens the package, you need to consider how best to highlight your product.

Shipping Boxes: When your customer receives your product, you want them to know immediately who it’s from. This helps to build anticipation for the rest of the unboxing and ensures maximum engagement with your bran Custom-printed shipping boxes can be very costly, both due to the amount of ink required and high MOQs. If your average order sizes are small, boxes also may not be practical. Mailer bags are a better option for smaller and lighter-weight products. Because they are less bulky, they also help to reduce your shipping costs, another important consideration.

Paper Pouches: Using custom Paper Pouches to pack your products adds another exciting step to your unboxing ritual. It adds to the feeling of your customers receiving a ‘gift-like’ purchase, as well as protecting more fragile items.

Paper Tape: Customized branding paper tape is a very economical way to liven up plain exterior packaging, especially if branded boxes are too costly or impractical, this is a great alternative.

Free Samples: Nothing says “value-added experience” like when a brand treats its customers to a small thank-you gift. Showing how much you value your clientele is an essential part of building brand loyalty and trust. It’s also a great way to promote ‘cross-selling,’ i.e., promoting other product categories, by choosing samples based on what customers have bought previously.

What’s the Right Customer Experience for Your Brand?

Summary. What makes a great customer experience? For some brands, it’s a frictionless journey. For others, it’s a memorable experience. But few brands are successful being both frictionless and memorable. Research shows companies can choose among four strategies when deciding whether to focus on being frictionless or memorable.

What exactly makes a great customer experience?

Sometimes, it seems the answer is companies that deliver hassle-free encounters. (Think Amazon, where you can seamlessly order just about anything and it arrives at your door, or CPP Insights, with its frictionless auto-renew process ) Other companies excel by delivering choreographed, immersive customer/buyer journeys. (Think about the experience of visiting a Ramoji Film City or an IKEA warehouse.)

But what do customers believe is more important? Do they prefer companies to focus on the experience design, or on flawless delivery and execution?

To find out, we asked 4,500 consumers about 134 unique brands in five different industries to learn about a broad range of ongoing purchase behavior, drivers of customer sentiment, drivers of spending behavior, and more. Our analysis revealed three notable findings. First, we found a positive correlation between both frictionless and memorable experiences and consumers ’ sentiment and spending behavior. Second, we found that those relationships varied by industry. Neither of these findings are that surprising. The third finding, however, is: At a certain point, there are zero-sum gains when pursuing both frictionless and memorable experiences as a competitive strategy Brands can only grow so much by pursuing a joint strategy of being both frictionless and memorable. To grow beyond that point, brands must choose to focus on one or the other–to be either increasingly frictionless or increasingly memorable.

Unveiling

the Frictionless-Memorable Frontier

All brands’ experiences compete on a continuum of being predominantly frictionless to predominantly memorable. The conventional wisdom is that a strategy aimed at reducing friction and a strategy aimed at increasing memorability offer equal opportunities for gaining market share. Our findings, however, showed diminishing returns as brands were viewed as more memorable. Brands with high market share tended to be more frictionless, whereas more memorable brands tended to have lower market share with little appreciable growth above a 15% market share cap.

Highlight. A compelling CX demands balancing customer empathy with technology to avoid falling into the trap of what we call “engineered insincerity,” or using automation to simulate interest in who you are as a human being Engineered insincerity shows up from brands in various ways, such as a constant flow of emails from a retailer that bear no understanding of your current situation, chatbots that use slang and informal language to make them appear human, and daily text messages that force you to unfollow Don’t let your automation strategy set the tone for your relationship with your customers.

One may assume, then, that brands should abandon a focus on memorable experiences and instead make their customer experiences as frictionless as possible. This presumes that brands can easily migrate from being memorable to being frictionless and vice versa While that may be theoretically possible, it means completely abandoning a brand’s strategy and positioning. Companies should instead embrace their fundamental brand characteristics and subsequently plot their best course of action for improving customer experience, and financial outcomes, according to their brand DNA.

Competing on Experience

The first step to a successful customer experience strategy is to be clear about what type of brand you have. Fundamentally, brands exist on a continuum from bigger established brands to smaller challenger brands. These differences inherently impact how brands compete with one another. They also impact the type of customer experience that is most likely to have the greatest impact on customers’ buying behaviors.

By incorporating a brand’s market share and how customers perceive their experiences with the brand (as either more frictionless or more memorable), you can place the brand into one of four categories, as shown in the “Customer Experience Matrix.”

But with so many opportunities to differentiate and make gains, what kind of experience management strategies should you apply to different segments?

Mass Market Brands

For the vast majority of brands with high market shares, the answer is simple: Make the experience as frictionless as possible. Mass market brands, such as Uber, McDonald’s, and

Amazon, tend to invest widely from placement to supply chain to automation to support these strategies. Mass market brands compete on price, assortment, availability, and relative ease.

This doesn’t mean having pleasant customer experiences is not essential. Rather, it is the recognition that mass market brands typically achieve growth through frequent usage. Almost by definition, this gives them an incentive to focus their strategy on reducing friction. Frequent usage also makes achieving memorable experiences difficult to maintain, since customers quickly habituate to their environment.

Convenience Brands

Convenience brands largely compete on the ease with which customers can fulfill their needs.

Convenient, frictionless experiences are expected

Unlike their mass-market counterparts, there are typically barriers to further scaling their service environments, such as geographical or market size limits Convenience brands often have opportunities to have more balanced frictionless and memorable customer experience strategies, but they win a share of wallets on their frictionless qualities.

Boutique Brands

Boutique Brands compete primarily on the memorability of their experiences. In some cases, certain types of friction improve the memorability and value of these experiences (e.g., dinner reservations at top restaurants, securing tickets to a popular show, etc.). In most cases, however, memorability is enhanced through well-planned, immersive customer journeys. While there is an opportunity to remove friction, it should be done to make it easier for customers to be immersed in the experience.

Gravity Brands

These brands are so rare that there isn’t a conventional term for them. Some people think of them as Aspirational Brands. Others think of them as Gravity Brands, because they are able to raise their market share despite the natural forces that tend to limit the growth of companies whose strategy focuses on creating memorable experiences. Though rare, gravity brands do exist and are often iconic, and emotionally resonant and operate in unique competitive environments that allow them to distinguish themselves and attract customers Building memorable experiences is typically achieved through investing in superior hiring and training processes, higher-quality experience components, and enhanced physical environments.

As customer experience has increasingly become the key differentiator across industries, there has been debate about which approach is the best way forward: frictionless or memorable experiences The reality is that there is no one right way to manage the customer experience. Different approaches will be more appropriate to different brands depending upon how they currently compete. Regardless, no company should forget that managing the customer experience is equivalent to managing customers for growth. The path to winning in business has remained constant even if the strategies for achieving it over time have changed: Make certain that your customers want to keep coming back.

Take a Holistic Approach with Total Experience

Clients often ask us how they should structure their functions to deliver better customer experiences, or what technology they should buy. But that is not the complete question.

The pandemic has taught us the critical role employees play in delivering a great customer experience. Their experiences matter just as much as customers, which manifest in employee experience or EX. But in most organizations, the functions responsible for CX, EX, user experience (UX), and the associated technology platforms work separately.

So, the better question to ask is how to organize in a way that delivers a more holistic and compelling digital experience for customers and employees.

Enter: total experience, or the deliberate connection of CX, EX and UX to make way for superior shared experiences for all stakeholders.

CPP Group is an example of a B2B organization that has embraced total experience. It realized that digital solutions often fail to meet the needs of customers and employees because of siloed approaches to design.

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced the CPP Group to debut new products virtually, the company initially created a self-service e-catalog for domestic and export manufacturers/buyers. However, this solution did not adequately provide the high-quality buying experience that buyers and sales employees previously had in person, as the solution’s design did not account for all end users ’ unique and intersecting needs. To meet this challenge, CPP Group launched a virtual showroom solution that delivers a higherquality product-viewing experience.

In designing and deploying technology solutions that consider the needs of buyers and employees first and technology second CPP enabled its employees to serve buyers better and improve the overall buying experience with smoother interactions between buyers and employees and an improved overall product viewing experience.

CPP achieved this by leaning on the core components of customer understanding and TX to avoid the trap of engineered insincerity.

Avoid “Engineered Insincerity”

A compelling CX demands balancing customer empathy with technology to avoid falling into the trap of what we call “engineered insincerity,” or using automation to simulate interest in who you are as a human being. Engineered insincerity shows up from brands in various ways, such as a constant flow of emails from a retailer that bear no understanding of your current situation, chatbots that use slang and informal language to make them appear human, and daily text messages that force you to unfollow. Don’t let your automation strategy set the tone for your relationship with your customers.

Measuring CX: One Size Does Not Fit All

You can’t declare your CX efforts compelling without proper measurements in place, which should reflect your company ’ s and customers’ goals.

CX metrics have several uses They can be used to communicate the rationale for previous investments; validate whether improvements to the customer experience have taken place; set goals and targets for future improvements; or intervene when remedial action is needed. The truth is organizations will often use dozens of CX metrics, and no organization uses the same combination

You cannot be successful if you rely on one measurement to determine performance, because you risk managing to a score instead of the customer’s needs and expectations. A better strategy is to use a variety of metrics that align with key roles across marketing, IT, customer service and product development, and associated CX priorities, empowering your organization with a more accurate and actionable view of customers’ behaviors and perceptions.

Here are five metrics that are absolutely essential to measuring CX: 1.

Customer satisfaction (CSAT): The oldest and most widely used CX metric.

Customer loyalty program participation or retention: A key indicator of the value customers see from engaging with your company.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS): A widely used barometer of the state of the customer relationship.

Employee engagement: Recognizes the role of employees in customer experience

The Customer Effort Score (CES): A more precise way to measure if you are truly easy to do business with.

There isn’t one way to measure digital customer experiences. It’s best to take an approach where your organization gathers a variety of customer signals along a customer’s journey.

Compelling customer experiences — physical or digital or both — start with compelling customer understanding. When we understand customers well enough, it gives us the ability to connect with them on a deeper level, even in small ways. We have to strive to challenge our beliefs about what customers, and now employees, want in an experience. Exceptional customer experiences are not about knowing every detail about your customers, it’s about knowing what your customers do, and why they do it. Demonstrate that you understand how to help them be successful and confident at pivotal moments in their journey.

It is about context, not technology. As business leaders, you have the power to influence this change.

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Pantone Fashion Colour Trend Report Spring/Summer 2023 For London Fashion Week [Colour Palette]: Dynamic shades blend with quiet tones for animated pairings and witty mixes.

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Share your ideas about colors and their pantones to insights@creativeprintandpack.com We will review and publish your ideas in next edition.

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