4 Ways to Streamline Your Business’s Packaging Process
Whether your business is food, retail goods, electronics, or something else entirely, are you giving enough thought to your packaging? A good way to answer that question is to think about the very last thing you bought personally, and then ask yourself a few more: What impression did the packaging give you? Do you remember it at all? Was it functional, reassuringly safe and secure, on-the-cheap, superbly designed, exciting? All of them? None of them?
Now think about your own organization’s packaging. Is it for protection, enhanced usability, premium aesthetics, optimal design? And if it is ticking the boxes you need it to tick, how are your current solution and its packaging process working for you on a day-to-day basis? Is it hurting the bottom line? Holding up the process? Giving you a headache rather than the pay-off you expected and hoped for?
With all these questions, it can be easy to feel lost – and then blame that for why you didn’t take swift action. But there is some good news: the packaging process really is under your full control, and the key to its success is to take a fine-tooth-comb to the crucial job of streamlining every aspect of it for our modern industrial age. And many of the tools you need to make it happen can be found at the globally-trusted supplier, RS Components.
Here’s how:
The design
Don’t forget, your packaging solution is just as much a part of your product as the product itself. Too many organizations, however, underestimate just how much the packaging solution translates into either more or fewer sales, so the first tip is a simple one: As you perfect that product, remember – the packaging is the product, too.
The inventory
One of the biggest mistakes made in that packaging planning is letting it fall behind the rest of your business – like necessary changes to the size and specifications, the materials, damage control, and costs. It’s too easy to think an easier solution will do, only to lead to unexpected damage during shipping and a resulting major branding hit. So if the product itself is in a state of flux, tracking inventory so that the packaging works every time is a must.
The cost
Cost is crucial – but sometimes that actually means paying a little more. Whatever your packaging solution is, don’t treat it like some other aspects of your business in which smart cost savings are hidden at the finish line – because a little saved in packaging machines, for instance, can cost you a whole lot more when the quality or responsiveness to necessary alterations is lagging behind.
Business’s Packaging Process: The technology
A business that falls behind the cutting edge of technology is a business that falls behind full-stop. That’s not just because there are some seriously exciting advances in packaging design, manufacturing, materials, and the like, but because a lot of little things can so easily be ignored – but if you knew about them, they could make a massive difference. Take something as seemingly bland as double-sided tapes – a beautifully simple and cheap solution for seamless, attractive packaging.
Now consider that there are hundreds upon hundreds of patents in this area – for very good reason. The innovative materials, the aesthetics, the adhesive qualities, and immense strength, the flexibility, the re-usability – it’s all accelerating forwards at an exciting rate, and useful not just for your product packaging but also the packaging process itself. When even adhesive bonding and double-sided tapes are evolving at this rate, take the lesson: packaging technology is something you can’t afford to ignore.
Yes, what is inside is obviously crucial. But without also factoring in the packaging, and the vital processes that go into it, you’re letting a key aspect of your business slink into the background and do its damage almost completely unnoticed. It’s up to you to streamline the packaging process of your operations or face the risk that your key competitors will race ahead of you in this easily overlooked area. Happy streamlining!
