Seeking to optimise the one physical touchpoint that e-commerce has with the consumer, more brands are attempting to replicate the high-end store experience for packaged products shipped to customers’ homes.
When done well, packaging for e-commerce can have a hugely positive impact on the overall consumer brand experience, delivering many elements of the in-store experience, such as quality material and on-point messaging, right into the home.
If executed poorly, however, it can destroy brand loyalty and kill any chance of repeat purchases.
Consider for a moment how much this matters regarding your own purchases. Whether you’ve received a product where the packaging seemed sub-standard and left a bad impression, or when, even with an arguably worse quality product, the packaging felt luxurious and left a much better impression. The role of packaging in the buying process has increased in importance. No longer simply there to protect and preserve goods, today, packaging is now truly part of the marketing mix and brand experience.
With the prevalence of online shopping and social media, organisations cannot afford to ignore the significance of investing in the right packaging. It can greatly affect how any product is viewed and reviewed. That one fold of tissue held together by a branded, diligently placed sticker can make all the difference.
And that’s where so many businesses fail. They fail to see that the smaller things add up to success. The margins between success and mediocrity in the packaging world – the difference between delighting and annoying customers – are so fine that the best approach is to assume no part of the packaging design is insignificant.
From our experience, and we’ve been helping brands and manufacturers worldwide for over 100 years, the devil is in the details. Every single finishing touch is part of the customer experience. Think of Apple’s subtle mastery of creating a tactile experience out of little more than a folding carton and some varnish, and how that influences our perception of quality.
So, whether your packaging sets the expectations for what is to follow or whether it’s a deciding factor beyond the key features it was bought for, these finishing touches can quickly compound to deliver much more than the sum of their parts.
The magic is in the detail
The quality of components and subtle details of product packaging are hallmarks of great design. It’s the small details, the little discoveries you weren’t expecting – the things that make you smile or make someone feel something. These are what matter.
While adding a tear tape may go unnoticed by some, it represents the detail of differentiation to others. And it’s these extra little bits that let people know you’ve done something you didn’t have to, to make it that little bit more special.
With so much packaging now revolving around nuance and detail, these elevated finishing touches are helping brands refine their online proposition. Those utilising the types of total tape solutions available through K+K Klebetechnik can do so with the knowledge that reinforced, creative, and frustration-free packaging will provide a competitive advantage.
Packaging has always been a platform for consumer engagement, but with the rise of eCommerce and social media, unboxing experiences are now front and centre. Using tapes, such as Rippatape®, to facilitate opening offers quick, easy, and blade-free access to the contents to help navigate the frustrating opening experiences that 57% of consumers report as a top issue with their purchases.
Through our high-performance range of easy-open tear tapes, we work with brands to develop packaging that delights. A prime example is Rippatape® Halo, our paper and board packaging solution created from sustainably sourced, specially coated paper. Many businesses who have chosen to deploy our breakthrough solution – and, by proxy, the packaging they place onto the marketplace – are fantastic examples of a sustainable swap done right.
Tear tapes can now improve the user experience on several fronts. Much like our own sustainability journey, they are a fantastic example of how applying sustainability can improve other areas.
A variant of our market-leading Rippatape® solution, its material composition means it can be reclaimed along with the board it is attached to, making it simple for consumers to recycle. Proving that brands don’t need to choose between sustainability and quality, Rippatape® Halo offers comparable tear performance to our plastic-based solution.
Total tape solutions
Once, we were prepared to wait, but now, same-day delivery is seen as a must. We have vehicles dashing all over the place, making single deliveries. We have the concept of ‘free’ delivery, which is a selling point for retailers. People also buy things, particularly clothes, intending to return much of the order, resulting in more carriage and mileage. But as our purchases hurtle towards us in ever-higher volumes and at ever-faster rates, they exert an unseen, transformative pressure on infrastructure and those same businesses shipping products in the first place.
As a result, everything is up for discussion, from the materials we choose to the overarching strategies we deploy. It’s no longer just the product inside that matters. Product placement, how the box opens and closes, what the customer sees first upon opening, the feel, weight distribution, construction, branding… the list goes on.
Shoppers are now used to the convenience of endless choices, speedy deliveries, and seamless returns. Thankfully, by using good quality, well-designed and easy-to-use packaging that ensures goods get from A to B and back again, it is possible to greatly reduce the damaging impact of returns on business and the environment. At the same time, the creation of these return-ready, memorable, true-to-brand packaging solutions can drive sales and improve recall.
Incorporating an easy opening solution into returnable packaging is critical to improving the consumer opening experience and delivering a method of opening that will maintain a pack’s structural integrity. If a consumer destroys the packaging upon opening an item, the returns benefit is lost immediately. Filtrona Tapes’ Rippatape® tear tapes, including the new fibre-based repulpable Rippatape® Halo, open corrugated and paper packaging cleanly, safely and without needing tools or blades.
With the packaging opened cleanly, if returns are needed, release liners or double-sided tapes offer a no-fuss, ready-to-use solution to reseal the pack and enable hassle-free repacking for the consumer.
Filtrona Tapes provides a range of paper-based release liners under its EASILINER banner, which protects glue lines, enabling consumers to remove the paper liner to reseal their packaging easily. Something as small as a glue strip and release liner can turn flexible or corrugated packaging into an easy-return solution with relatively little investment yet significantly boost the consumer e-tail experience.
Opening up the future
In today’s fast-paced commercial world, where consumer loyalty is harder to win and easier to lose, brands must take every opportunity to meet consumers’ shifting needs. And, as brands wake up to this reality, that pressure falls squarely on the packaging industry to deliver the detail-rich solutions its brand customers rely on.
Whether they’re browsing the aisles or scrolling on a phone screen, attracting your customers and convincing them to select your product or that they have chosen wisely is no mean feat. It’s more crucial than ever to ensure packaging design disrupts the consumer somehow and the best way to do that is to leave no stone unturned.
Our range of tapes enhances brand communication and authentication, bolsters consumer convenience, and provides an unforgettable opening experience. Its value is in its versatility.
We have a diverse range of customers around the world and in a wide array of industries, and one thing remains consistent in our approach – understanding the issue is critical to deploying an effective solution.
If you want to explore how total tape solutions can work for your packaging, then why not connect with our team of experts today or visit our long-term, valued German-based distribution partner K+K Klebetechnik at eCommerce Berlin?
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