WWN - Packaging

WWN – Packaging.

I can be accused of being slightly obsessed here… it’s all fine and dandy producing a product but you then must package it, or do you?

I used to love all the creative elements of designing packaging, in fact at one point I would have quite happily gone off in a different direction and become a cardboard engineer (if such a job existed?) but now, due to increase costs and the effect of ever increasing consumption, particularly on the environment, here at Skibz we’re trying it keep packaging to a minimum. 

In 2008 when I first had to think about packaging, most Skibz products were sold through shops, however now about 80% of our products are sold on-line and here changes the packaging solutions.

Manufacturers tend to package products for these reasons:

1)           To survive transit, from factory to shop.
2)           To make the product look attractive to consumers.
3)           To enable the product to be displayed in shops, ie stackable or hangable.
4)           To tell the customer of what it is and why you should buy this particular product.

Therefore, it protects the product, fits in a shop display system and informs the customer.

1) Products will always need protecting from factory to shop, but with less packaging products can be packed closer together reducing the amount of air between them. This takes up less space which results in cheaper transporting charges in the ship, lorry or van.

However, they will still need packing individually to send the product safely to the customers home, but this needn’t be in snazzy, glossy boxes but good quality basic, unprinted, unbleached paper and boxes.

2 and 3) If most products are purchased on-line it cuts the actual shop out and therefore perhaps we only need to think about protecting the product in transit. For example, a Skibz bib could come in a plastic bag without the pretty backing card and hook? All instructions could be on the purchasing web-site and all important instructions would have to be on the label anyway to adhere to legislation.

4) The information and selling points can also be conveyed on the selling sites.

So, in theory we could cut our nearly all of the packaging. Wrong (in my humble little opinion). Okay, so we could just use a simple swing tag, saving the expense on the product, saving energy on producing the actual packaging and giving less to landfill/re-cycling sites. But, what if you’re product is sold as gifts as a large percentage of Skibz are? What happens when you get orders from a shops?

Do you:
Ask and then pack accordingly – too complicated and ‘bitty’, we need to streamline our sales not complicate it.
Pack as if a gift – too pricey and wasteful.
Use bare minimum protective packaging – too risky as it may put customers off giving as a gift.
Use as little packaging as possible, making it looks as beautiful as possible – we try!

As every new batch comes in we use less and less packaging whilst still trying to keep the products looking as glamorous as a bib can! We used to send out brochure with all our products but now have had little ticket sized booklets printed which we stick to packaging of some of the products. I can remember out first Skibz were all sent out in a Box!

Skibz Essential out basic everyday Skibz does literally come with just a swing tag (above) as we know these are not sold as gifts.

I am very aware that we still use too much packaging and we’re constantly working on how we can reduce it without making too much impact to the customer. People still and will always love to shop, whether it be more for a day out and not a necessity now but how we shop is a whole different subject – I’ll save this for another day! For the time being Skibz packaging is definitely a work in progress…

We’d love to know your thoughts, feel free to contact us at info@skibz.co.uk

Competitions

Congratulations to Lynne Heath and Belinda Matthews on winning ‘Manic Monday’ on our FB page and #Winitwednesday over on our Twitter page.

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until Next Week

Helen x