learnthe4ps.com - For students of marketing.

Online retailers seeking to enhance their customers’ shopping experience are focusing on what’s in the box. In our text books we note three primary roles of packaging: promoting, protecting, and enhancing the product. This multimedia Wall Street Journal story (which includes an article, interactive graphic, and video) “Boxing Up Shopping’s Magic Moment,” (November 17, 2011, non-subscribers may have to click here) provides great reinforcement of all three roles of packaging:

1. Extensive testing of many packaging materials to assure that packages survive the trip from the retailer’s warehouse to the customer’s home in good shape.
2. Many online retailers are wrapping the inner package in a beautiful manner to enhance the overall experience when the package is opened at home.
3. The beauty of that inner package makes people feel better about the brand and promotes the next purchase.

Use this article as a launching point for some creative idea generation.  What else could an online retailer do to enhance the “box opening” experience?  What else could they do to promote the next purchase?

It has been a few weeks since our last post — Learn the 4 Ps took a break to get through final exams and the holidays.  Now we are back with a nice supply of articles.  Posting may be a bit heavier than normal in the next few days.

This article, in one of my favorite trade magazines (Brand Packaging), titled “Brands Without Borders,” (November 5, 2010) describes the challenges of global package design.  Many firms would like the simplicity of designing a single package and using it across the planet, but that is easier said than done.  Retail formats vary across countries, local tastes and aesthetics are different, along with other variations.  One cultural difference noted that Chinese consumers “favor busier packaging and tend to associate simple, understated packages with lower-end generic products.”