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12 best practices for retail-ready packaging

The specific type of retail-ready package for the job depends on the specific retail environment where the products will live, but there are many factors to consider.

A multilayer flexible bag protects this air-based energy boost product in a lipstick-sized canister, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be retail-ready almost right out of the shipping box.
A multilayer flexible bag protects this air-based energy boost product in a lipstick-sized canister, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be retail-ready almost right out of the shipping box.

Retailers have taken notice at how the economics of high-volume, fast-moving consumer goods have changed in recent years. Led by big box stores, these retailers have seen the wisdom of trimming one of their biggest costs of operation—store floor personnel hours spent restocking or “facing up” products on shelf.

Brand owners have scrambled to meet retailers’ requests with retail-ready solutions ranging from large corrugated boxes with loose packages to smaller, notched paperboard holders for stand-up display of carded packages—and all points in between. The specific type of retail-ready package for the job depends on the specific retail environment where the products will live, but there are many factors to consider.

1. Remember the primary market drivers. The trend toward more retail-ready packaging is driven by retailers’ desire to reduce store staff hours. The ideal retail-ready package is a shipping package that can be almost instantly shelf-ready. Understand the brief or the specific goal you need to meet completely, and ask for all marketing input upfront. Get shopping data from retailers, if possible, to learn what forms have been working for the retailer, and keep those in mind throughout the package development process.

2. Engage suppliers early. Always work closely with suppliers in order to optimize the retail product SKUs and features before starting the real project. Make sure you understand the customers’ requirements—all of them. Shelf dimensions, rate of sale, automated warehouse systems, and distance travelled all can have an impact on how successful any retail-ready package is. Even if you start with a previously successful structural design, still plan for lead time in sorting out problems along the way.

3. Mind your perforations. The type of perforation will affect the ease of tearing, and the design and placement of a tear-off part will affect the strength of the package. One best practice when designing retail-ready packaging is to double-check that your new packaging design will work with the current packaging equipment. A simple thing like a perforation pattern can end up right where a suction cup is supposed to pick up and place a package, which can cause major issues for something relatively small.

4. Maximize the experience for retailer staff. Keep it simple. Perform ethnographic research and carefully watch retailer staff interact with existing retail-ready packaging. Make the packaging intuitive for the stock person to display correctly. Too many parts and wordy instructions should be avoided. Instead, develop easy-to-follow graphic instructions as long as they don’t detract from the overall visual design. Construct a package that contains a reasonable quantity of product, that can be loaded in a single action, and that is easy to swap out and dispose of with minimal waste. When reasonable, make reloading possible even with some quantity of product still in the retail-ready packaging, to avoid stock-outs.

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