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Smart retail package design

Patrick Sbarra is president of New Creature, an in-store marketing and POP display company that—as he explains—helps Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and their suppliers to “sell more stuff.”

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PW: How do you think packaging design differs between warehouse club stores and mass merchandise retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Target? 

Sbarra: The primary consideration is the buying environment itself. In the mass environment, there exist 100,000 plus skus versus 4,000 plus at club. At mass, the unit package is relatively small in comparison to club. Being smaller, it will be picked up, handled, and turned around more as the shopper examines it and possibly the SKU next to it to learn more. Great designers are good at simplifying the message without cluttering the unit package or reducing the type size of critical information to a point where the average eye struggles.

In the club environment, the items are more likely to be presented in bulk and in much larger boxes than at mass. Often these items are on standalone pallets, up on risers, or buried under the green steel. These big boxes become billboards in the club environment. And as most of these large boxes or units will not be handled by the consumer in the club environment, it is critical that the hierarchy of decision-making information is presented on the panel directly in the consumer’s line of sight—possibly even on all sides.

PW: Do you have any suggestions on how a consumer packaged goods company can be flexible enough to produce different packaging formats for different retail environments, while still being cost-effective?

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