Cosmetic Box Packaging

When you think about the type of packaging, you need to protect your cosmetic products against damages during transportation, it’s a good idea to factor in cost and labor productivity. Without a doubt, these are essential considerations. But have you ever considered how your choice of cosmetic box packing affects customers' perception of your brand and consumer lifetime value? 

You’ll be amazed to know the answer.

To understand the phenomenon between unboxing experience and perception of product value, Pregis and the University of Wisconsin commissioned a joint study. The key aim of the research was to comprehend how different protective packaging solutions sway pricing perception and effect unboxing experience.

Wondering, why this is important? 

With retail continues to shift from brick and mortar stores to digital, the unboxing experience taking place inside consumers’ homes is replacing the in-store experience. Throughout the years, the retail store experience has become more complex as it involves placement, branding, merchandising, music, scent, and personalized service.

As a result, many retailers have failed to imitate this elated physical store experience with home delivery. This is greatly reducing the lifetime value of the customers.

To evade the costly mistake, let us analyze the results of the aforementioned study that shows how parcel packaging choices are influencing customer experience. 

Price Expectations & Purchase Decisions

The study clearly shows the difference between the price expectations of two groups: economy versus premium. According to the statistics, the participants of the premium group were willing to pay $27.77 for the item, but they were expecting the retail price of the good to be higher, close to $49.07.

In contrast, the willingness to pay showed by the participants of the economy group was only $21.30, which was 30% lower than the actual price point. While the expected retail price identified by the group was $33.83 that was 35% less than the expectations of the premium group members.

Since customers are typically good at predicting behaviors of others than themselves, the researchers phrased the price expectation question in both directions. They also questioned the participants: 

How likely it is that they would gift the item to a friend?

The premium group remained at the top again by recording 4.2 on a scale of seven, whereas the economy group came out with a 3.6 response. 

Emotions Associated with Buying Experience

Consumers instinctively know that emotions are associated with buying experience. Sadly, most cosmetic companies rarely take this into account. The emotional responses, gathered from a questionnaire, clearly show why you need to pay more attention when making protective packaging decisions.

When participants were asked to describe how they felt when they first unboxed the product, here’s how they responded. For a second time, a seven-point scale was used to reflect different emotions.
  • Excitement: The premium group folks showed 4.8 points for excitement in comparison to 4.1 of the economy group. This shows that premium packaging recipients were 15% more thrilled to receive their packages.
  • Happy: For this attribute, the point scale results were pretty close with premium packaging receivers looked only 5% more happy.
  • Trust: In this scenario, the premium package gained 4.4 for trust and the economy package scored 3.7. This means premium packaging receivers gave their containers 19% more points.
  • Frustration: Here the economy group showed 25% more frustration (2.4 points) than the premium group members (1.8 points).
  • Disappointment: Again, the economy group indicated a higher disappointment, 31% than the premium package receivers.


Takeaway

The key takeaway from this research is that cosmetic box choices are gravely affecting buyers’ unboxing experience. So it’s essential for cosmetic brands and retailers to package these products in decent containers if they want to increase sales and the lifetime value of the consumers.

Else, you will end up benefiting your competitors because poor packaging choices will turn away your target customers. This can ruin your brand reputation as well as the bottom line.