Design

Snappy graphics and distinctive shapes can have a powerful effect on store shelves, but can packaging exert the same allure for the growing number of consumers opting to shop online?

Given that it only amounts to about £10bn a year, online shopping is a relative blip on the overall UK retailing balance sheet: just 4 per cent of a total yearly spend of £249bn. All the indications are, however, that it’s a percentage share that’s going to expand; if in doubt, hang on to register the Christmas returns clocked up next month.

According to the Interactive Media in Retail group, online spending is growing 10 times faster than spending in shops. Furthermore, that actual £875 per head spent online could be just the visible tip of a far more influential financial iceberg. What can’t be evaluated is the amount of time we spend pre-store in checking out potential purchase decisions.

In this more considered scenario then, what price that eight-second window of opportunity that prevails in the supermarket for picking out one particular product from a host of alternatives? Indeed, what price the future role of packaging to draw the eye and inform the choice of selection?

Unless there’s a total upheaval in shopping habits – and even allowing for the further steady growth of online retail business – the opportunities for innovative packaging applications still far outweigh any potential downgrading of status within the marketing mix. Indeed, as the initial point of contact switches from shelf to home, structural design and functionality will take on greater importance. Over and above that, however, there’s added scope in two clearly defined areas: the emergence of specialist websites and final delivery.

Developing a niche
The greater proportion of goods ordered from the desktop rather than the aisle is readily available in-store, so the dual role of packaging as brand differentiator and product informer remains assured. The bulk of this is merely an extension to well-established business operations, with innovative packaging playing second fiddle to distribution. Latest to enter the ring is Tesco Direct, a home shopping service that offers more than 8,000 items from electrical products to golf clubs.

However, the online environment is also proving to be a low-risk lifeline to a burgeoning number of niche retailers for whom a bricks and mortar existence has been largely extinguished by the multiples and major chains, and which are seeking to offer a less commoditised return to choice for jaded consumer palates.

By day a store manager for Gap, Lucy Wallington has been running www.gorgeousthingsonline.com in her spare time for just over 18 months. While turnover probably wouldn’t amount to a decent weekend’s takings on the high street, the running costs are low and at least 30 customers have already become regular shoppers via the website.

Products normally come from suppliers pre-packaged in large boxes. For onward distribution, I wrap things up in my own packaging – invariably in tissue paper and with raffia ribbons for additional presentation – and then recycle the original transit packaging to send them off, says Wallington.

Not so much packaging then, as gift-wrap. Nor does Wallington anticipate upgrading in the near future. It’s something I’d definitely love to do, but it’s incredibly expensive. I guess that if the ribbon or maybe the tissue paper were to be specially printed, then yes, it would support the Gorgeous Things branding. If you buy something off Boden, for example, they have branded tissue paper but I’m not altogether confident that it adds any more value for the customer, she says.

In terms of presentation, the Gorgeous Things website has opted to place its focus on photography rather than packaging to elicit sales. A lot of online retailers will just show the product against a white background, says Wallington. What we’ve done is to play on the lifestyle element; showing the product in situ so the customer can see the product in a home setting.

Specialist tea retailer www.leafshop.co.uk is another fledgling online start-up that trades on the basis of letting the product speak for itself. We felt people were disconnected with tea as a product, says Leaf founder Delphine de Chabalier. Most people have never seen the tea itself as it’s hidden behind teabags and a box, and stacked in the last aisle of the supermarket.

With Leaf, our website is really our packaging, but you also have to remember that you’re missing a few senses when purchasing online. We’ve kept things simple when it comes to packaging and the website. Once at home, the packaging has to be functional and carry the same feel and chemistry. For example, we use a simple re-sealable Kraft bag with a large window so that you can see the tea even in your cupboard. The label has been designed as if you were buying a product in the shop; no barcode of course, but giving you all the essential information.

For our tea tasters – matchbox size tins containing enough of the product for one or two cups of tea – the packaging is crucial. But being a small firm we couldn’t have commissioned anything special so we came up with the idea to use little sniff boxes instead, which can be reused to take your favourite tea to work.

Logistical issues
Portability, it seems, is key to packaging for products bought online. Designers working on products for the internet market also have to contend, more than ever, with issues arising from the delivery process. With pricing in proportion, the size and weight of the final pack must be considered at the very start of the design process if weighty materials are to be incorporated into a cost-effective pack. As a consequence, design has focused more on smaller, streamlined shapes.

Delicate materials are not considered a problem as advances in light-weight transit packaging allow online retailers to design inner packs to create a brand experience rather than just get the goods to the customer intact. In fact, the desire to use unusual materials is even starting to dictate how a pack is designed. If the online vendor of meat from Wasdale Fell Meats, which uses the fleece from the meat to insulate it in-pack, is anything to go by, pack design for goods dispatched over the internet will be leading the way when it comes to making a customer more aware of a brand’s values with its packaging.


Customised delivery
With online retailers becoming more successful, distinctive packaging will be more in demand. Meanwhile, Jardin Corrugated is exploring more immediate possibilities with an extension of the trend towards retail-ready customisation.

As a leading supplier of corrugated packaging within the home delivery flowers market, Jardin produces on average 5,000 units per week for the likes of Tesco, Next and M&S via central distributors. For the past nine months, the Cambridge-based converter has been the test site for the new Sun Chemical/Inca Digital FastJet single-pass digital inkjet press due to be fully commercialised early next year.

According to managing director Kevin Hennessy, while the technology is ideally suited to the further customisation of what is already a highly personal gift, suppliers have been relatively slow on the uptake.

Some retailers are only interested in the box as a no-frills shipping container. Others, however, do want to create an impact; for example, there are fixed date occasions when the retailers will ask for a special box. That’s when digital comes into its own, because you can produce a relatively small quantity very cost-effectively. Hypothetically, that could easily be taken to the next stage by tailoring that packaging to a factor of one.

Although we haven’t ever done that yet, we have certainly talked about the possibilities with one or two customers. So the proposition would be, for example: you could send a bunch of flowers to your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day with your photo on the pack.

The difficulty with this is that it’s a completely new proposition. Frankly, it’s one of those areas where the suppliers have no idea of what the demand is likely to be. As a concept, it’s more likely to be picked up by someone new to the market rather than by an existing distributor.