Here are six common packaging mistakes to avoid and tips on how to prevent them:

Neglecting Brand Identity

Mistake: Using generic packaging that doesn’t reflect your brand’s personality, values, or message. 
Solution: Ensure your packaging design aligns with your brand identity. Incorporate your logo, color scheme, and brand messaging to create a cohesive and recognizable look that resonates with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to be bold and stand out against the competition!

Inadequate Protection

Mistake: Failing to provide sufficient protection for your products, leading to damage or theft during shipping and handling. 
Solution: Use a trusted packaging company that uses high-quality materials, modern designs and state-of-the-art technology that offers the right level of protection for your products. Always consider factors like your product’s weight, fragility, temperature needs, and stackability when choosing the packaging. Complete Packaging Solutions always takes these factors into account when designing packaging for your products.

Ignoring Sustainability

Mistake: Using excessive packaging materials or packaging methods that produce a lot of waste. Excessive packaging and waste increase costs, and may be a turn-off to eco-conscious consumers.
Solution: Opt for sustainable packaging options that require less materials or utilize reusable or recyclable materials. Reducing packaging waste is not only environmentally sustainable, but reduces your packaging costs as well.

Related Post: 8 Top Sustainable Packaging Ideas

Overcomplicating the Design

Mistake: Creating overly complicated, complex, or cluttered packaging that confuses customers and distracts from the product itself.
Solution: Design your packaging with simplicity and functionality in mind. Consumers should be able to glance at your packaging and immediately understand what your product is, as well as its features and benefits. However, this doesn’t mean your packaging has to be boring – you can create bold designs that stand out amongst competitors that are simple and to-the-point.

Choosing Incorrect Sizing & Fit

Mistake: Using packaging that is too large or too small, leading to wasted materials or insufficient protection.
Solution: Use custom kitting and precise measurements to ensure your packaging fits your product perfectly. Proper sizing reduces material waste, enhances protection, and makes your product stand out on shelves. Working with a professional packaging company ensures your product is packaged to exact measurements with minimal waste and maximum protection.

Related Post: What are Kitting and Fulfillment Services for Packaging?

Lack of Information and Branding

Mistake: Not including pertinent product information on your packaging and not having a cohesive branding strategy across your SKUs.
Solution: Make sure to highlight your product’s key features in your packaging and coordinate your branding strategy across your line of products. Consumers should be able to instantly understand and recognize your product. Clear and consistent labeling not only helps customers make informed decisions but also minimizes buyer’s remorse, fostering trust and loyalty in your brand.

Tips to Avoid Packaging Mistakes

• Conduct Market Research: Understanding your target audience is key to making products that your customers love. Your customer’s wants and needs should drive how you produce and market your products. Taking their thoughts into consideration helps you create packaging that looks good and works well, improving the overall consumer experience. Ultimately, knowing your customers builds loyalty and helps your business grow by ensuring your products match what they want.
  
• Invest in Quality Design and Packaging: Work with professional designers and packaging companies like Complete Packaging Solutions to create aesthetically pleasing, functional packaging that protects your product and appeals to customers.
  
• Test Your Packaging: Prototype and test your packaging and displays to identify any potential weak points, branding issues, or defects before mass production. Catching issues during prototyping is far better than discovering them once your product is on the shelves.
  
• Put Yourself in the Customer’s Shoes: Evaluate your product as if you were a retailer or customer. Is it easy to open? Does the packaging look consistent and display neatly? Can it be recognized at a glance? Make sure interacting with your product is easy and frustration-free before it reaches your customers. If you have any issues with your product, your customers are likely to experience them as well.
  

Do you need help with your product packaging? Get in touch with the professionals at Complete Packaging Solutions! Our extensive selection of individual and collective packaging options is designed to meet your specific needs. We handle all quality control in-house, ensuring you don’t have to worry about any packaging mistakes! Contact us online or give us a call at 530-586-0368 today!

The post 6 Common Product Packaging Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on Complete Packaging Solutions.

Packaging companies are moving towards a more sustainable manner of packaging, not just to appeal to customers but to establish a more “green” image for potential investors. 

All in all, it pays for all businesses to consider sustainable packaging alternatives. 

In today’s post, Complete Packaging Solutions in Brookville, Indiana, discusses the future of sustainable packaging, the trends, and the unique types of alternative packaging materials available. 

Why Sustainable Packaging Matters

Packages are frequently thrown out and carelessly strewn across public spaces; this makes the environment messier and encroaches on the biodiversity of animals. 

There has been an increasing push for all companies, not just packaging plants, to embrace ESG (environmental, social, and governance). 

The Role of Turnkey Packaging Companies to Promote Eco-Friendly Options

Turnkey manufacturers have the ability to promote more eco-friendly packaging materials and procedures that give off fewer carbon emissions. It opens the door to appeal to a customer base that has environmental concerns. 

Here’s what packaging companies are doing to be more sustainable:  

• Sustainable material sourcing 
• Eco-friendly production processes 
• Practicing “green” design principles 

The Shift Towards Sustainable Packaging

The majority of packaging manufacturers have moved from an industrial base to a “consumer-style” of packaging. 

This is because unique, interesting packaging is what helps to drive purchase decisions from consumers. Of course, people are also looking for sustainable and eco-friendly packaging options – anything that’s plant-based, biodegradable, and healthy for the environment. 

This comes at a premium, of course. Cheaper isn’t often as sustainable. The premium offers a more recyclable form of packaging, however. 

As technology advances, the cost of creating eco-friendly packaging will decrease steadily. 

The Growing Adoption of Biodegradable Packaging Materials

Plant-based materials have been on the rise – especially in the food and beverage industry. These come in a variety of forms. 

Cellulose 

Cellulose comes from cotton, hemp, wood pulp, or trees, which are then transformed into raw packaging materials, customized to be water-, oil-, and air-resistant, thicker, thinner, harder, or softer to withstand heat. 

It’s commonly used in food packaging but can also be used in pill packaging. 

Polylactic Acid (PLA) & Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)

Bioplastics are a type of plastic that can degrade and decompose naturally, not harming the environment. The two most common types are PLA and PHA. These are made of raw materials like sugarcane, cornstarch, or tapioca roots. 

They’re commonly used in 3D printing; these plastic filament materials have a low melting point, high strength, low thermal expansion, and great layer adhesion, making them perfect for creating high-grade packaging.

Sugarcane Bagasse

Sugarcane pulp. It’s a fibrous material that has various uses. It’s often used in the food and beverage industry to provide an alternative to conventional plastic packaging. 

Bagasse can biodegrade in 30 to 90 days without leaving any toxic residues behind. 

Other Innovative Packaging Materials 

• Corrugated Bubble Wrap: 100% recycled cardboard produced from leftover scraps during box manufacturing. 

• Biodegradable Packing Peanuts: Albeit this material is used as a filler rather than packaging, they’re made entirely from plant-based starches. 

• Recycled Cardboard & Paper: Most paperboard, tissues, cereal boxes, and cardboard can be used to create new packaging. 

• Mushroom Packaging: Mushroom-derived packaging can be composted at home. Once dried, mushrooms can be transformed into various molds to fit retail, cosmetic, or food products. 

• Cornstarch Packaging: It’s renewable, affordable, and not scarce. It also has low flammability. 

• Seaweed Packaging: On the cutting edge of sustainable packaging alternatives comes a method that extracts agar from seaweed and algae, which is then dehydrated to create packaging material. 

• Edible Films: A creative food packaging alternative for wrapped food items created from chitosan (a sugar made from chitin shells of crustaceans) or from milk protein known as casein. 

Evolution of Traditional Packaging Materials 

Traditional packaging materials have gotten a makeover. No longer relying on processes that negatively impacted emissions, new packaging materials and processes began to take over. 

The “Circular Economy” Concept 

The Circular Economy is a model of production and purchasing that involves reusing, sharing, and recycling existing materials. This ties directly into the trends seen with turnkey packaging manufacturers. 

Many packaging companies are choosing to engage in “circular design principles.” This can often relate to using a single material for creating packaging or making packaging designs that are easily reusable or recyclable, providing a ton of lifetime value for the cost. 

Single-Material Packaging

Mono-material packaging involves only one type of material, making it easier to recycle and reuse or repurpose. Most packaging is composed of multiple materials, which means they need to be disassembled in order to be recycled. 

Not only does single-material packaging require less energy (lower emissions) to create, it can be repurposed after it enters a waste management stream. 

Modular Packaging

Modular packaging involves greater levels of scalability and flexibility. Streamlined packaging processes that involve a modular system results in the more efficient use of resources, which contributes to more sustainable packaging.

The Ongoing Evolution of Sustainable Packaging 

The road toward more sustainable packaging is going to involve synergistic cooperation of various stakeholders: packaging companies, consumers, government service providers, retail outlets, and more. 

For more information about Complete Packaging Solutions’ advances toward sustainable packaging, click here. 

The post The Future of Sustainable Packaging: Innovations and Trends to Watch appeared first on Complete Packaging Solutions.