Holidays are around the corner. Gifting ideas are popping up on Pinterest and other websites. The Holiday excitement creeps higher, and it is getting crazier in the field of e-commerce. Whereas most of the e-commerce businesses are focussing on attracting new customers into their websites at this time of the year. From stocking up inventory to planning on discount sales, everything is on the line of preparation for almost all online stores. Extensive products range and discount sales are certainly key areas to focus on. At the same time, the shipping methods and delivery timings are other crucial areas to be looked at.
Besides, there comes another most important element of raising the standard high for a brand. The Unboxing Experience. How can a brand give their customers the best unboxing experience? I have been doing shopping online for more than eight years. The initial stage of my shopping experiences were entirely different. There was nothing called Cash on Delivery then in India. Only credit cards were accepted for making payments. Checkout process took my heartbeat for a race most of the times. Personals apart, receiving the shipment was the most exciting part of all. Who cared about how the package looked like. Receiving them at hands was the success of the online shopping I did. The packages came broken, torn, worn out, crushed, and in different unpleasing shapes. All I looked for was if the products I ordered were inside, and there they were. That made me immensely happy all the time. Good old days indeed.
Gone are the days.
Now there are thousands and thousands of online stores coming up every day. Each brand is competing to excel their competitors in all aspects of the business. The shipment reaching a customer in time is not the end of the online shopping process. It's important to know whether the unboxing experience of the client is satisfactory and will it affect the new conversions. My initial purchases were only books and music, so even if the package was so torn, or bad, the products looked unaffected. Later days, as online stores started mushrooming, product-categories were expanded from baby diapers to home furniture. Hence, packaging and shipping became the most important step of the online selling process.
Packaging Industry
Ecommerce industry cannot run successfully without packing supplies and solutions, I am sure. In my opinion, this packing supply industry is a separate industry that has been growing rapidly along with the e-commerce industry. Moreover, I found a piece of information somewhere that India is the 6th largest packaging market in the world.
Also, it is to be noted that an online store cannot sell a product for a retail price without adding the packaging charges. Packaging materials and sizes differ depending on the size and weight of the products. Oh wow. My head spins to think about the types of online stores, and the range of packaging supplies the businesses thrive on. Choosing packaging materials for the products is an art. Some companies mastered the art already. If a product is packed with care and aesthetics, it will be unpacked with the same artistic approach.
I encountered with a few different unpacking experience during this September. I ordered for some birthday party supplies, kids dresses, clutches, and shoes on Amazon.in. It was quite an experience. Been doing online shopping for a long time on Amazon, and I should say that their service is totally amazing. Perfect packaging with care and perfect unpacking moments most of the sellers have given me. There are some exceptional as well, but I speak about the sellers that did a wonderful job with packing and shipping.
There is this one website called Vyolla.com. This particular website is one of the very few that I choose to buy gifts for women guests who visit us. They never failed to give me wowing unboxing experience. Perfectly sized boxes, carefully packed products that says to me withour saying that “we cared and respected this product so much, and you do the same even after owning it as well.” If a brand respects their products themselves, the customers respect them as well. It worked for me. I am sure it would work for the majority.
What's Expected
There is no time schedule for shopping online. I do it when I feel like doing it. I sometimes do sleep-shopping at midnight. There were nights that I clicked checkout buttons even without verifying the number of products in the shopping cart. I still wonder how my hands knew the Card credentials even and they actually do know pretty accurately. However, whether I shop consciously or sleep shop, my dream to see the product in real will be bigger than how they displayed the product on the screen. If such is the dream, I need not explain, how my expectation about the packaging will be. It doesn't need any explanation in fact. The sellers should understand it. The convenience of doing online shopping is of different levels. It includes how much time I get to dream about the product I ordered as well. The unboxing moments may shatter the dream I built about the product so far. So, it's the seller's responsibility to fulfill my expectation. If he displays a product on his website in a brilliant manner, it is expected that the product reaches me in the same manner. As simple as that.
Give A Brand Experience
A Brand Experience – that sounds kind of cool to me. I would love that. That's how I associate myself with a brand of my choice. If the brand doesn't come forward to create a connection with me respecting my likings, I don't think I could create any bond with them. In my opinion, the unboxing experience a brand tries to give their customer is something that breaks the virtual impossibilities of creating happy vibes in customers' mind. A personal touch to product presentation creates an extraordinary connection with the customers. That's where the brandability is proved. I still cannot forget the way my little girl's birthday dress I received from Hopscotch.in. It came with a personal note inside from Mr Rahul who owns the company, a gift ribbon with a cute bow and a decently designed simple wrap paper with their brand name (I wish I clicked a picture of it after unboxing. Maybe next time without fail). I ordered the product, and I knew that it was the one, but it was still a surprise; it gave me a thrilling chill.
Additional Excitement
A simple coloured tissue paper with a simple design, a bowed satin ribbon, shaped foam cuttings, corrugated rolls, vouchers, coupons, a tiny funky gifts(if it is a women's product especially. Winks) or some personal note. Add some of the stuff in random to create an extraordinary unboxing excitement in the customer's mind. That worked for me perfectly. Get ready for the Holiday sales with better packaging ideas that could promise better unboxing experience. And it's another broaded topic to discuss the types of packaging that go with the types of product categories. Also, there are more to this topic. Let's discuss the types of packing and related stuff sooner or later.See you later.
