Product Packaging Best Practices

What you need to know about packaging your products!

The way you package your product and put it out into the world can impact its success or failure. Even if what you’re packaging is the best product on the market, if it has low quality or poorly designed packaging, customers will not find it appealing.

Good packaging should, at a minimum, accomplish three things:

• Be noticed by customers
• Showcase the product benefits
• Include any legal or industry-specific warning labels

How it accomplishes these things and how effectively it does so is up to the designer and the purveyor of the product. Factors like industry, customer base, competition, and budget also need to be considered when designing packaging.

General Product Packaging Best Practices

Regardless of what industry you’re in, there are a few things that you should know when designing product packaging:

• Your Budget
• Your Audience
• Your Competition

Budget

As with anything in business, creating and manufacturing the packaging for your product costs money. How much money you can afford to spend on product packaging should be reflected in your budget. A good print finisher will be able to work with your design ideas and help you figure out how to accomplish your goal within your budget.

Audience

When designing packaging, it helps to understand your target audience, their shopping behaviors, and the environment where they will encounter your product. Are you creating a cosmetics line for women in their twenties, or are you creating products for older women? Researching your audience and creating packaging that appeals to them in an important part of successful packaging design.

Competition

Similar to knowing your audience, it’s also essential to know your competition. After all, your products may end up on the shelf right next to theirs. Knowing what your competitors are doing, what colors they use, what bottle or box shapes, as well as industry standards, will help inform your design.

For example, if the kind of product you’re selling comes in packages that are typically colored blue or green, such as eye drops, creating a red box may help you stand out. However, customers may associate your red box with their red, dry eyes and choose a product whose packaging looks more soothing — something in a blue box.

Packaging for Cosmetics and Skin Care

In addition to general packaging practices, some industries require special consideration, such as cosmetics and skin care. These products are bound by safety rules and regulations to include certain information on their packaging. They also exist in a highly competitive market, with product turnover every season, and where standing out from the competition can be challenging.

Sigma Beauty Product Packaging Exterior

Designing products for cosmetics and skin care also may include several layers, such as:

• The outer layer or box
• The inner layer protects the product during shipping
• The product container itself

The design for these package layers should be cohesive but also provides an opportunity to surprise and delight.

In this area, innovative packaging trends have taken inspiration from other industries, such as food and beverages or medication.

Packaging for Pharmaceutical Products

Pharmaceutical products, like cosmetic products, require legal and safety information to be prominently displayed on the packaging. They also need protection and often use plastic safety seals, blister packs or layered packaging.

Pharmaceutical product packaging also has some conventions, such as the use of blue and green in eye drop packaging, and some long-standing brands with distinctive color combinations. Tylenol, for example, has been in production since 1955 and Bayer has been selling aspirin since 1899!

In this area, knowing your competition as well as any industry conventions will help inform your packaging design.

Packaging for CBD Products

Cannabinoid products, or products containing cannabidiol (CBD) oil, are quickly entering on the market with the relaxation of laws restricting the use of marijuana across the country. CBD oil is popular for medical purposes and can be found in skin care and beauty products.

CBD oil is an organic compound, which means that exposure to air and light can cause it to break down. Because of this, it’s vital that CBD product packaging protect it from light, which makes the layered packaging of cosmetics a good option.

Packaging Presents Your Product to the World

The packaging you choose for your product presents it to the world. No matter what kind of product you’re packaging, to be successful, it should get noticed, highlight the benefits of your product and stand out from the competition.

Our expert team is here to help you create the packaging of your dreams, contact us to learn more.