Choosing the Right Packaging Company
Will Your Choice Determine Your Sales Success?
A good packaging company can make a substantial difference to the success of your product launch and your customer’s perception of your reliability as a supplier. They can boost sales and help generate the ROI you need. They might even bring transformative ideas to help you exceed your expectations.
It’s not always a matter of who the best packaging company is but rather which one is right for you. Choosing your packaging company or contract packager shouldn’t be a knee jerk reaction. Your gut instinct should really be about who fulfills the key must have’s on your list.
Looking in All the Wrong Places?
There are still manufacturers who buy packaging products from China, only to learn the distance, communication problems, and time delays in adjusting prototypes and making changes lead to serious issues at retail level. Others make choices based solely on the fact that the packaging company was well known. Then they discover the well-recognized packaging contractor fell way short on service.
In the end, it comes down to solid decision making on your part. For certain, you have to ensure you’ve got the key services covered and the packaging firm you hire is reliable and delivers on what they promise. Think about what could go wrong, and then you’ll have the motivation to refine your decision making.
Consider these important issues when choosing a packaging company:
- Distribution and logistics: Can this company distribute the product where you need it on time and on budget? You don’t want to hear “We can’t get your packed product to Calgary, Edmonton or Vancouver on time” just before your key sales period.
- Service: This may be the most important element since it reflects a commitment to the customer and a job well done. Those who actively seek customer satisfaction may be proactive in everything they do. Look for good communication, responsiveness, reliability, quality results, and the ability to work with everyone in your sales and distribution channel.
- Flexibility: is the packaging company so pressed for time that they can’t adjust to delays and errors? If displays or product to be packed is delayed a couple of days, will it spell disaster?
- Copacking: Some packagers have complete packaging and fulfillment services which sure takes a load off if you need thousands of displays produced, assembled, and distributed.
Creative Graphic and Package Design: A creative, imaginative design team can give your product packaging and displays a big lift and design can be inspiring. From blister packaging to full displays there’s plenty of packaging design features they can come up with. Just remember everything else your budget also has to cover.
- Good communication: From beginning to end, packaging can be complex so you’ll need to be sure you have great communication with the packager’s sales and technical team. Otherwise you’ll get what you don’t want or need, from colour matching errors to logistical nightmares.
- Cost: In business, you get what you pay for, however it can be easy to get cost overruns when you’re working with multiple service providers. Weigh your cost concerns against what you will get in return from the packaging company. Be very wary of low ball quotes — they’re cutting corners and something is bound to go wrong.
- Location: If you’re located in Toronto, hiring a Vancouver packaging company, Alabama packaging company or a China packaging supplier entails risk. A local Toronto packaging company is close enough that you have physical face to face contact with them. An old saying goes that you should “keep your supplier close enough to get your hands around their throat!” Proximity tends to ensure your suppliers get the job done right.
- Ethics and Integrity: Ensure you have complete confidence that your provider won’t be cutting corners at your expense, their facility is clean and well managed, and they have quality controls in place. Ensure they don’t have any direct conflicts of interest as packagers may also be supplying your key competitors.
- Capacity: Does the packaging supplier have the production capability, copacking and fulfillment services you expect to need. Don’t hope they can do it, make sure they have done it already and have learned their lessons on someone else’s money.
- Good references: How much are references worth? It depends on the questions you ask them, so be sure to ask about the issues important in your project success.
- Quality: The quality of their packaging projects should be considered. You’ll get a first glimpse on their website and you’ll want to check out their packaging on the store shelves and at their sales office.
- Financial stability: smaller packaging companies will need to hit the mark dead on and won’t be able to cover on big mistakes. They may not be able to redo a packaging project and you’ll be stuck with shoddy printing, or defective product going nowhere. Ensure they’ve got the financial strength to get the job done even if things don’t go smooth, or that they aren’t on shaky ground financially.
Investigate each of these points and you’re bound to avoid some nasty surprises and get the great packaging company you’re hoping for.
Need to find ways to improve your product shelf impact, and how to create disruptive packaging that gets consumer attention? Where to spend your packaging dollars? Studies show design, sustainability, and instore positioning are key elements to successful consumer packaging and sales strategies.
Consider your product launch and promotional strategy, which might include free sample promotions, multichannel promotion, sms retail offers, and adopting qr codes.
Share your packaging provider stories with us. Have you chosen well and what do you recommend about choosing packaging suppliers?
The entire industry revolves around serving their customers. If those customers aren’t satisfied with the service they are getting, they aren’t going to stick around. So, I like your tips to find representatives that are responsive and proactive. It might also be a good thing to see that the employees enjoy working there.
I had no idea that you should consider the flexibility of the packaging company if they are pressed for time. It would be nice to find a service that will be able to deliver, even if they don’t have that much time.
I like that you mentioned that a good packaging company will be really good at communicating with you. In any business relationship, good communication can make the difference. I haven’t had any need for a packaging company. If I ever do, though, this is definitely something I will keep in mind!
My husband is looking for a packaging company to work with his warehouse and I thought that I could help by seeing how to choose one. You mentioned that it is important to have good communication so it is a factor to pay attention to when talking to a packaging company or else you will not get the ideal product. That is a great point for me to pass on to my husband as he looks online.
The company I work for is looking for a new business that we can get our packaging supplies from for our products. So thanks for letting us know that we should make sure that our communication with the company is clear so that you only receive the orders you want with no errors to be found. I’ll be sure to tell my boss that we should make sure the service we get our packaging supplies from is known to have great communication skills so that there will be no errors in the future.
i agree with u point of thinking about choosing the company which provides the better quality of services related to packaging.Its very important for the product which have u launched in market recently.
Your advice to choose a packaging company that has a creative, imaginative design team that can create something that is inspiring is a good idea. This would be useful to catch peoples attention so that they’ll be interested in your product. In order to find a good company, you’d probably want to research the different options online so that you can see examples of their work and learn more about their business in order to figure out whether they’ll be able to provide the best packaging design.
Thanks for saying that you would want to consider if a packaging service is flexible. It would be good to consider this because it would ensure that they are qualified. My brother is looking for a packaging service, so he’ll have to consider how flexible they are.
I agree that a good packaging service has good communication skills. It would be smart to consider this because it would ensure that you are always up to date on the status of your shipment. I’m looking for a packaging company, so I’ll have to consider their communication skills.
It’s great that you’ve mentioned how one should choose a packing service provider that is in close proximity to the area where the items should be shipped so that it can be delivered faster. My sister is looking for a packing service for the business that she wants to set up. I’ll mention this to her so that she can narrow down her search for packing service providers that she will do business with.
Thanks for the advice about finding a packaging company that can work to get your product out on time and on budget. It would be good to find somewhere that has the distribution network necessary to make things work. You may want to go online and talk with past clients to see what kind of experiences they have had with a packaging service before hiring them as well.
Thanks for mentioning how a packaging design company should be at communicating with. I also like how you said that they should offer you a quote as well. My husband and IA er looking into a packaging design company; we appreciate your tips.
Thanks for sharing it