Custom Branded Packaging in eCommerce

Custom Branded Packaging in eCommerce

Fifty milliseconds: that’s how long it takes someone to formulate an opinion about your brand. The Google study that published these results emphasizes how crucial first impressions are. And in the world of ecommerce, where touch points are more limited than physical retail, first impressions are essentially all you have.

Not to be overlooked when gauging the power of positive impressions is custom ecommerce packaging. Arguably, packaging is the most crucial branding element to an ecommerce business’s survival. It promotes recurring clientele, it facilitates the all-important unboxing experience and, perhaps most importantly, it can transform your product into a lifestyle—and as we’ll later discover, a lifestyle is what today’s ecommerce clientele is really buying.

None of this is to say that what’s inside the box is an afterthought to how you dress it up. Rather, the question becomes how customizing your packaging design can better communicate your business’s strongest selling points and differentiation. After all, it’s the packaging that creates the first tactile impression with your customers. What do you want this impression to be? Is your packaging simply a box that carries your product from point A to point B or does it give your brand additional value?

Why does it matter if it’s already been purchased?

The consumer has dripped down your sales funnel and clicked the big BUY NOW button. Your money has been made. Why does it matter if your designer tube socks are shipped in a stock envelope as opposed to costlier branded packaging?

This short-sighted sentiment dangerously undervalues the power of recurring clientele. The real cost analysis you should be performing isn’t price of an envelope vs. the price of a branded box but rather, the cost of prospecting new customers vs. the value of returning clients.

While building your clientele is certainly important, one needs to consider that in almost all cases, acquiring a new customer is significantly more expensive than selling to a current one. Adding to this important fact, return customers spend on average 65% more than new clients. Perhaps your printed custom boxes are costlier in the short term but if you step back and look at the bigger picture, the effect branded boxes have on your customers can be a major moneymaker.

Indeed, you may be wondering: But if I have a quality product and the customer likes it, why wouldn’t he or she buy from me again? Unfortunately, when it comes to securing return clientele, the quality of goods or services alone isn’t enough. According to a Bain & Company study, 60-80% of self-described “satisfied customers” do not return to the business that satisfied them. Customers may indeed love your product but if they don’t remember your brand, they’re unlikely to be running back to you.