A business’ products need to sell, and there are all sorts of marketing and advertising campaigns that a company may employ to attract customers’ attention and show off why their items are the best to buy. Television, internet, and radio ads are all common routes, but in the store, a customer will see the product in person, and in this scenario, it is packaging that will entice a customer and make him or her want to buy that item. This applies to anything from food packages like coffee bag packaging and organic food packaging to dog food packaging or cat food, all the way to children’s toys to board games to cleaning products like liquids and powders, or even computer parts. Food, in particular, is an arena where companies work hard to make their product stand out, such as organic food packaging and boxes for cake mixes or soup cans. Many of today’s customers, especially younger ones, are discerning about the food they eat, often with an eye for nutrition, whole ingredients, and sustainable ingredients, or cage-free eggs or free-roam livestock. How can organic food packaging and other products’ packaging draw in customers, and why is this so important?

The Power of Packaging

Organic food packaging, frozen meals, cat food, and more need to draw in customers and show off why they are the best items to buy, now and in the future. Often, a package will use a combination of visually striking and appealing packaging graphics to attract a customer’s initial attention, and then photographs and printed information on the package will seal the deal. Plenty of statistics back up this need for good packaging to boost sales. 62% of Americans, for example, which is around two in three people, read food label packages, so sellers are well advised to make the contents worth reading and show off the product’s merits. Packaging in general is powerful; it has been shown that businesses that pay close attention to their products’ packaging can expect a 30% boost in customer interest, and 52% of online shoppers have said that if their product came in premium packaging, they would return to that business and buy from them again in the future. And overall, some 85% of shoppers have said that reading product package labels while shopping influences their shopping decisions. How can organic food packaging or hardware make use of this power?

Details in Packages

There are a number of techniques that packaging can employ to draw in customers’ attention and make them want to buy that product over another. Often, a business may in fact outsource this labor to graphic designers, who will develop designs that draw attention and make use of how the human mind and eye work. Some tricks may involve bright colors, often yellow, orange, red, or white, or even gold, to make a product appear warm and inviting (fast food restaurants often use this strategy for their logos). Appealing patterns like curves, colors that fade into each other, photographs, and more can also make a package look appealing, and this means that packaging often functions as a piece of art as well as a business strategy. Photos may involve attractive, happy people using the product or eating that food to good effect, and this creates the impression that the product/food and happiness are closely connected. In the case of food, like organic food packaging or tea packaging, a fancy, idealized version of that food item or drink may be shown, something restaurant-worthy. Text on the package can also describe the assets of the food item or object inside and why it is worth buying, although such information is probably best delivered in bullet points or short paragraphs, since advertising has a customer’s limited attention span to work with.

Even someone making party favors or homemade food or candy can make use of such packaging, but in this case, the packaging may be homemade and certainly is not motivated by a need for profit, nor is it competing with other packaging. This allows personal packaging to reflect the maker’s tastes and the occasion, such as a baby shower, a birthday, Christmas or Hanukkah, St. Valentine’s Day, a wedding anniversary, and more.