While the world of e-commerce brings endless choices to our computer screens, the power of packaging remains a key consumer driver. As more and more purchases are made online, branded packaging remains a key component of the total brand experience.

Packaging in an e-commerce world serves two main purposes: safety in transportation and branding. Both are important to your bottom line and the future growth of your business.

Safety in transportation cannot be understated. Damage is very bad for current business and absolutely caustic for keeping customers happy and coming back. It’s common that the amount of future sales you need to cover the total costs incurred by one damaged item is 10x the cost of that item. Add to that an increase in the likelihood a repeat customer now has cause to look at your competition because of their experience, and it’s not difficult to fathom the lifetime value of that customer will cause you to need to generate 100x revenue on that item to pay for the one damaged delivery. That’s the scary stuff.

The fun stuff is branding. Outside of your truly unique product design, packaging will give you the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to a customer’s engagement with your brand. Packaging can create perceived value (think better margins), it can engage excitement within your community (think unboxing and YouTube reviews), and packaging can assist in your upsell strategy (think revenue growth). All it takes is imagination and creativity… and if you don’t have all of that yourself, you can work with experts in the field.

Never settle for brown stock boxes and cheesy stickers when upgrading to custom packaging can reduce your damage rate, as well as give you the best platform to foster customer engagement with your product. The rewards will far surpass the added expense with beautiful and structurally correct packaging.