The Impact of Packaging on Brand Image
Packaging plays a vital role in e-commerce, acting as a safeguard for products during shipping. With customer satisfaction being one of the key factors in today’s market, the way a business approaches packaging design can have a huge impact on its overall success. Faulty packaging, damaged goods, and negative customer experiences can deal a huge blow to your brand’s image, making it tougher to stand out amongst the crowd in today’s market.
In this article, we will discuss how poor packaging design and practices can affect your brand’s image and tarnish an otherwise great reputation:
How Poor Packaging Practices Can Affect Your Brand Image
1. Customer Frustration
When customers place an order for a product, there is an inherent expectation that their order will arrive on time and in one piece. When customers receive a damaged product due to poor packaging practices, this will inevitably lead to disappointment and frustration. Nothing can create a negative emotional experience like someone working hard and saving their money for months to make a big purchase—something they should be proud of—only for a package to arrive with broken goods inside. This frustration is sure to affect their perception of your products, the quality of your packaging, and their overall view of your brand.
2. Loss of Trust
Repeated issues with damaged products undermine trust in your brand. Having repeat customers is an incredibly difficult task to achieve when people don’t think your products are worth buying. As the negative reviews start to pile up, customers may start to question the quality of your products and the reliability of your packaging and shipping methods. Trust is a cornerstone of brand loyalty, and once that trust starts to erode, it can be challenging to rebuild.
3. Negative Word-of-Mouth
People tend to rely on family, friends, and colleagues for recommendations on products and value their opinions very highly. Word-of-mouth marketing can be either a blessing or a curse; positive word-of-mouth can greatly boost your reputation and lead to more customers, but negative word-of-mouth can spread like wildfire and severely tarnish your brand image. As the mentions of damaged products, doubts over the quality of your products, and frustration felt from the returns process begin to spread from person to person, it can easily deter potential customers who may otherwise like your products.
4. Reduced Repeat Business
Brand loyalty and repeat business are huge factors in a successful brand and product line. Many companies offer a wide range of products to fit a variety of needs, and customers tend to gravitate towards brands that offer a range of products to suit a variety of needs. For example, a family may own an LG TV, an LG fridge, an LG dishwasher, LG air conditioners, etc. Building up a following of loyal customers can lead to a huge potential for repeat business, and it all starts with that first purchase. If issues with faulty packaging, damaged goods, and returns do arise during that first purchase, that negative experience can deter what could have been a lifetime customer from even considering buying a second product from you.
5. Higher Costs
In addition to revenue losses, poor packaging practices can also lead to increased costs as you deal with the returns process. To put things in perspective, during normal order fulfillment, you’re only sending the product on one shipment from you to your customer. During the returns process, you’re really spending on three trips: the primary shipment, the return shipment, and finally shipping the replacement product back out to the customer. Add in extra costs for expedited shipping each way and lost revenue from sending out two products for one order fulfillment, and these costs can quickly spiral out of control. This is especially true for refunds, in which you essentially eat the cost of shipping to and from with no revenue gained at the end of the process.
Guarantee Quality Packaging Solutions and Protect Your Brand Image with Preferred Packaging Products
Since 1985, we have been the preferred packaging, logistics, and automation solution for hundreds of businesses along the Front Range.
We specialize in custom package development and can help you optimize your packaging to maximize product protection, minimize material and shipping costs, and keep customers happy. We also offer a wide selection of high-quality generic packaging products and materials to suit all of your packaging and business needs.
Some other ways Preferred Packaging can help your business include:
- Our logistics, warehouse, and distribution services can help you streamline your logistics process and better support order fulfillment.
- Our package kitting and assembly services can take a load off your employees and help your business focus on other tasks.
- Our packaging equipment automation and installation services can increase your efficiency and help your business transition to a more hands-off packaging process.
To see what Preferred Packaging Products can do for your business, give us a call at (303) 444-4774 or get in touch with us online to get started.