How is Your Packaging Stacking Up?
The November gloom was no match for the warm glow from MadeHere PDX as makers gathered to talk displays and product packaging. Panelists Yana Yakhnes (Only Child Chocolates), Charley Wheelock (Woodblock Chocolate), Brad Swift (Portland Bee Balm) and John Connor (MadeHere PDX co-owner) discussed the retail side of merchandising and shared their tried-and-true approaches to packaging.
When it comes down to it, your packaging does a whole lot more than carry and protect your product. Packaging is one of the first opportunities to present yourself to your customers. Maker Yana Yakhnes shared with participants that she relies on unusual designs and the visually-appealing decision to make use of the full color wheel to grab customers and set her chocolates apart from the sea of others on the market. Yakhnes emphasized that her fun packaging is not just attention-grabbing; it works as a gateway to open up her customer’s minds to the many unique flavor combinations she offers. What’s more, she’s found that incorporating storytelling into the unwrapping experience gives her an opportunity to further connect with her consumer, making the experience of consuming her product enjoyable from beginning, middle, to end.
That, of course, doesn’t mean you have to have the wildest packaging out there in order to get noticed in the first place. With enough consideration for the design, Charley Wheelock pointed out, there are many ways to make efficient packaging look great.
“Don’t look at standard as evil, look at it as a tool to design better,” Wheelock said.
Wheelock has even leveraged standard sizing to his advantage. He has designed the dimensions of his product and their display-ready packaging so that a set fits perfectly into a USPS flat rate box. Both Wheelock and Brad Swift spoke about the process of working with Columbia Corrugated to design packaging that met their needs.
From the retail perspective, John Connor advocated for makers to keep the retail experience in mind and to forge close relationships with the shops that sell their products. How well does your product display? Does it stack? Do you include displays? What does it look like after getting jumbled around by your mail carrier? Simplifying these processes not only helps you, but makes for a smoother experience for the people who work to put your product out there (and probably talk to your customers more than you do!).
Put simply, makers should ensure that their packaging, labeling, and delivery cartons are all thought through from one end to the other, starting with how consumers will interact with and use the item, all the way through how the maker will fill it, pack it, stock it, and including retail partners in the middle, making it easy for them to display, sell, scan, and price the product.
As food for thought, at one point all panelists agreed that mediocre products can sell really well in great packaging, but great products won't work in poor wrapping.
To close out the night, the team at MadeHere PDX opened up for any must-have purchases attendees wanted to make and panelists spoke individually with makers about their businesses and troubleshooting design and retail issues.
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Words by Rachel Dutton
Photography by Sarah Toor