Branding Gift Packaging

Helping Retailers Build Their Businesses

Make Your Branded Products Stand Out

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Shoppers today are visually driven.
Shoppers today are visually driven.
How can you make your unique brand stand out against the competition in the retail space?

Little Things Could Make A Big Difference

For instance, you can now obtain specially designed stamps and customized logo designs created especially for small businesses and it is not expensive. The end point should always point to a clear and cohesive brand. It should be so unique that the customer may forget the name, but remember the pleasure of the purchase.

Some hints for effective branding and creative business, both online and offline:

Develop Your Online Assets

Begin with analyzing what makes your product unique. Then try to make that special quality obvious through branding, through the use of color and imagery, a logo or any other means that will imprint on the mind of the customer.

Perfect Your Product Labels

Shoppers today are very visually driven. Products that are attractive to buy and that remain attractive when they are displayed in the home are what customers want. Customize labels, boxes and containers to reflect the message you want to send. The packaging is the culmination of the effort you are making to positively identify your product. Labels, stickers and hangtags are handy for specific details. If you are looking at wholesale transactions, remember that a crush-proof exterior is essential.

Hone Marketing Materials

Business cards and supplemental marketing materials are part of the marketing and branding process. Thank-you cards and postcards are ways to extend the relationship between you as the seller and your customer, human touches that invite a return visit. Handwritten notes work, if feasible.

Generate Or Take Advantage Of In-person Events

Find a way to display your products at small events.
Core marketing materials don’t need to change, but if you are displaying your products in a booth, make the signage consistent with what has worked for you before. Your established colors, logo and brand imagery should stay the same. When packaging goods for in-person shoppers, try to make bags as attractive as possible, so they can advertise for you as they continue browsing. Include a business card and care instructions for use of the product if necessary.

Limit Expenses

Don’t forget to include packaging and promotion when considering what your product costs. Make what you can and look for economical and expedient options for what you must purchase. Research companies that make the products you need and try to cultivate a good working relationship with the one that works for you. Don’t overstock. Get quotes on different sized orders. Some companies will require minimums, but there is lots of competition among those who provide packaging and you may be able to bargain.

Small Business Vs Big Retailers

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Small retailers are faced with many problems trying to be competitive.
Small retailers are faced with many problems trying to be competitive.
The total share retail sales generated by ecommerce continues to grow, but experts are advising that five current marketing trends may challenge small ecommerce operations. They include:

Competition In Pricing And Shipping

Dozens and even hundreds of sellers list identical products on marketplaces. Nothing but price differentiates them. That may hurt smaller retailers that don’t have the buying power of the larger outlets. And when the larger competitors offer free shipping, the incentives for shoppers tilt again in their favor. The trend is expected to grow this year. The biggies such as Amazon and Walmart have shipping facilities dotted around the country that allow them to ship from the facility nearest to the customer. As many as 60 percent or orders can be handled in the metropolitan area where the customer lives. That may mean the buyer will pay less and receive the goods faster. Small retailers would do well to look for unique or private labels to sell, decreasing their competition with the larger retailers.

Competing With Manufacturers

The classic model in retail is for the store to buy products wholesale from manufacturers or distributors and then resell at a higher price. That may put the small online business in competition with its own suppliers. The easy entry for ecommerce into the market has encouraged many manufacturers to combine wholesale sales to ecommerce outlets with direct sales to customers. Again, the answer for the smaller competitors is to find private label products.

Social Media

Increasingly a tool for marketers, it hasn’t lived up to the expectations. This year may see a change as social becomes more compelling as an alternative to searching. Facebook and Pinterest, in particular, are among the best sources for ecommerce traffic. There are indications that shoppers are more frequently using these platforms to look for wanted items. Small retailers find it a mixed blessing. More exposure vs. the need to manage another selling channel. The advice is to watch developments and if social emerges as a significant ecommerce channel, learn quickly how to compete in t he market and to manage it.

Consumer Loyalty

Hard to win and easy to lose, loyalty is worth the effort, but may also be a challenge for smaller retailers. With fewer resources to put into the game than do the big sellers, that makes it very important to cultivate a good relationship with every customer. It is easier to double the effort to win a loyal customer than to try to regain the relationship when a competitor offers something more.

Creating Content

Content marketing is becoming more important both to win new business and keep loyal customers engaged. Marketers are becoming expert at creating how-to videos, trendy articles and posts that keep the buyer interested. Again, the big retailers may have entire teams to handle this aspect of their business, but even the smallest online store can learn to produce attractive content to keep customers coming. You know your clientele best. Find ways to keep them interested.

Gift Wrapping Tips

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Use your imagination when wrapping your gifts.
Use your imagination when wrapping your gifts.
Wrap It Up – In Style

After choosing the gift, the next step is to make it so attractive it’s part of the holiday appeal. Some folks have the thing down pat, creating packages with perfect corners and stylish bows. Others do it by-guess and by-golly, but there are tricks that can help either type of wrappers.

There are outlets that provide wonderfully color-matched wrappings with all sizes of boxes and bags to handle anything you could buy as a gift. If you doubt your own ability to pull it off, browse some of these stores or sites. But if you are determined to make it on your own, here are some ideas:

Begin by buying a season’s supply of double-sided tape. It goes smoothly beneath the surface and leaves a neat seam line.

Keep your sheets of wrapping paper bound by toilet paper tubes to ensure that they stay neat and manageable. Cut the tube lengthwise and snap it over the roll of paper and avoid the mess of warped and wrinkled paper.

A plastic bread clip can keep the end of your transparent tape roll from being lost so that you don’t lose time trying to find it each time you are ready to begin again.

Avoid having to wrap awkward-shaped gifts by finding clever containers for them. Round canisters that held potato chips or other snacks make dandy housing for small stocking-stuffers. Toilet paper, paper towel and other tubes, (including the wrapping paper tubes as they empty) ditto. Turn a foil-lined chip or popcorn bag inside out, cleaning off any oil or other debris and voila! Insert your gift, add a bow and it’s ready for the recipient. Inexpensive plastic food containers also serve well for small gifts and make for easy wrapping. Gift boxes of all sizes are available to help provide a good surface for wrapping clothing, soft toys and other items.

Use popsicle sticks, wooden spoons and other items with flat surfaces to create a gift tag. Drill a hole for the ribbon and put on the who-to and who-from and you have a distinctive gift. Use some imagination.

If paper is your nemesis, use fabric to wrap your gift. It is reusable, has more flex and is more durable and less easily damaged than paper. Newspaper, especially the colored comic pages, also makes an interesting gift wrap.

Kraft butcher paper, a popular item in the gift-wrap specialty stores, makes a nice countrified finish. Heavy duty mailing paper also is easy to work with. Use a rubber stamp or your own artistic talents to put a design on, style it up with a ribbon and you’re set.

Work on a flat surface. It’s easier to control paper, ribbon and tape.

Recycle old wrapping paper or greeting cards by cutting out the designs and reusing them to create new items or decorate your plain gift wraps. Make thank-you cards using these sources as well.

Turn your creative urges loose and one idea will lead to another. Then let the wrapping begin!

Or you can watch this fun video.

Can Retailers Offer Same Day Delivery?

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Get your packages ready for shipping at least 2 weeks before Christmas to avoid any delivery issues.
Get your packages ready for shipping at least 2 weeks before Christmas to avoid any delivery issues.
Same-Day Delivery Is A Boon

Shoppers both online and in stores have come to include the issue of delivery when it comes to holiday buying. They tend to look for the retailers who will assure that the gift and Santa arrive at about the same time. Or at least that Santa isn’t stymied when the goods haven’t arrived in time.

Responding to the concern, a number of large retailers now offer quick – often same-say – delivery. Among those that have joined the movement are Target, Amazon and Macy’s. Some shoppers, in fact, are willing to pay more to assure that their purchases are there when they need them.

With holiday shopping in full swing, retailers are going out of their way to accommodate customers. This is the season when the merchants make up to 40 percent of their year’s total in sales. Experts predict that Americans will spend up to $61 billion for online items before the year is out.

Fresh in their memories are the fiascoes that occurred last year when UPS and FedEx failed to get items to the purchaser, in part due to bad weather and overloads. Although it was a small part of the many season purchases that failed to meet holiday deadlines, it mattered to those whose gifts were caught in the mess.

Some oversight groups are concerned that despite the recognition of what happened last year, there could be delays again this holiday season. The delivery companies are now estimating what the demands will be, compared with spending estimates, according to ComScore, a research firm. They anticipate a 16 percent growth in spending this year.

The retailers are banking on earlier shopping to accommodate the added demand, with shipments spread over a longer period of time.

Amazon added more than 10 distribution centers and 15 smaller sorting centers that sort packages by ZIP code to facilitate the expected demand. The company also expanded its Sunday delivery service. Same-day delivery is available for a $5.99-per-order fee for members of the company’s Prime loyalty program, which was expanded from four cities to 12, most of them on the West and East coasts.

UPS officials say they expect to deliver 585 million packages this month, an 11 percent increase over last year. FedEx puts its expectations at 290 million packages, an 8.8 percent increase.

Google has joined the retailers offering delivery. The Google Shopping Service, which costs $10 a month for members or $4.99 per order, offers same-day shopping to customers of Costco, Toys R Us and other retailers in six metro areas. “eBay Now” also has been retooled from a stand-alone app to a payment method available on its site.

Although the merchants are stepping up to get merchandise where it needs to be in the most expeditious way, the onus still is on shoppers to allow themselves plenty of time. Shop early.

There’s A Rosy Glow About Retail Sales

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Rising Consumer Confidence Helps Retail Sales Industry
Rising Consumer Confidence Helps Retail Sales Industry
The latest government reports on retail buying and consumer confidence have a rosy glow about them. And with evidence of “solid economic growth” in the third quarter, it seems Americans are regaining some of the confidence they lost during the recent recession.

The August figures showed an 0.6 percent increase in retail purchases, following an 0.3 percent increase for the previous month, according to Commerce Department figures. In 11 of the 13 categories tracked by the department, there was improvement.

Michelle Girard, chief U.S. economist at RBS Securities Inc., Stamford, Connecticut, said, “Consumers are feeling better about the outlook for the economy, certainly, and that’s one of several factors that is supporting the better spending numbers.”

Contributing to the optimism is the improving job market, rising stocks and stabilizing home prices, along with a dip in fuel costs. Looking at the factors combined, experts are raising their forecasts for this quarter’s economic growth.

The Federal Reserve may raise interest rates sooner than was expected as the economy shows signs of returning vigor.

Consumer confidence is at the highest in more than a year, according to Thomson
Reuters/University of Michigan figures. The index for this month rose to 84.6, the highest since July 2013. A projection of expectations shows that more Americans are feeling more confident about the country’s economics than they expressed in the July 2013 surveys.

“The consumer is in decent shape right now,” said Gus Faucher, an economist with PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in Pittsburgh. “e are looking at solid economic growth in the third quarter.”

The annual back-to-school and back-to-college shopping sales appear to have validated the forecasts of improved sales, although they are still being analyzed.

Last month, some 142,000 workers were added to payrolls. Over the past six months, the increase in workers has totaled more than 1.4 million. The unemployment rate fell from 6.2 percent to 6.1 percent. But there has been no indication that wages or compensations has risen and that is a factor in government conversations about raising interest rates.

A mid-September meeting of leading federal economists was to look at the current figures and issue new forecasts for the interest rate, as well as projections for economic growth, unemployment and inflation.

About BowsNBags.com

The BowsNBags blog presents retail store owners with resources that will be helpful to them in growing their businesses. From suggesting conferences to attend to finding the best sources for their products, we cover a wide range of simple, helpful tips and suggestions for your retail store operations. On our store front at BowsNBags, we provide our customers with all the supplies they will need to wrap packages for customers, to provide shopping bags for customer and to provide retail gift … Read More

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