Choosing quality over cost for cosmetics packaging

That’s according to Roger Caracappa, senior vice president of global packaging for Estée Lauder, who spoke at the Innovative Packaging Symposium held in New York this past May.

“The individuals we hire [as suppliers] are technically competent, brilliant people,” he says. “We don’t need project managers, we need people that are valuable through the quality of their engineering. Process is more important than price.”

In fact, Caracappa says a more expensive supplier was chosen to provide the packaging for a new type of lipstick from Estée Lauder. The supplier was given the business because of the packaging technology, not the price, he says.

In the prestige cosmetic arena, package quality is key to customer loyalty. Expectations are higher, Caracappa says. And that comes with a cost.

“We live in a world where the fast eats the slow,” he says. “We need continuous improvement. It’s about high-quality cost with a fair price of goods. Consumers are smarter and more discriminating than we think.”