{"id":19293,"date":"2018-08-23T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shipstation.com\/?p=19293"},"modified":"2024-10-10T14:24:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T19:24:58","slug":"managing-ecommerce-packaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shipstation.com\/blog\/managing-ecommerce-packaging\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Tips for Taking Care of Your Ecommerce Packaging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This blog was contributed by Ben Conard. Ben is the Marketing Director at noissue.co<\/a>, an online platform for ordering custom branded tissue and stickers. Noissue gives SMEs access to affordable, sustainable, customized packaging worldwide.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Branded or Unbranded Packaging?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As with all things, it depends on what you\u2019re selling! If your product is highly technical, then it\u2019s likely that people aren\u2019t buying it for the aesthetic appeal. In that case, branded packaging might not make much of a difference for your customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re selling something that relies more on the visual impact \u2014 say clothing, handmade goods, or even a subscription box<\/a>\u2014 then it makes more sense for you to spruce up your ecommerce packaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you think about your ecommerce business, how many touchpoints do you have with your customer? If your main form of interaction is on your webstore (which is likely), then making an impression in the physical sense can be worth the extra spend on branded materials. And if your budget doesn\u2019t have room for that kind of thing, there are other ways to make an impression! Consider including a specialized thank you note or a postcard with your orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your packaging needs to fulfill its primary focus, which is to get your product to your customer safe and sound. Anything extra is icing on the cake, which can benefit your company in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a Dotcom Distribution study on ecommerce trends, 40% of online shoppers<\/a> said that branded packaging made them more likely to recommend a product to their friends. That\u2019s a lot of extra word of mouth that, as an ecommerce business, can be hard to generate outside of the online sphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Managing Your Budget<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For a typical ecommerce brand, packaging for your direct-to-consumer sales is a different beast entirely than what your product is packaged in to start with. So to be clear: we\u2019re talking about what goes around<\/em> your product in order to ship it to its end destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our basic rule of thumb is that your packaging costs should be between around 1% and 5% of your average order value. Below is a breakdown:<\/p>\n\n\n\n