How Packaging Can Influence Consumer Buying Behaviour

Together with promoting, pricing and advertising, packaging is one of the main marketing strategies used by companies in order to sell their products.

Put the same quantity of one product in two boxes, one a plain white cardboard box and the other one in an attractive, colourful box, position them side by side on a supermarket shelf and sell them at exactly the same price, guess which one will sell? This is a simplified example to show you that packaging does influence customer behavior.

Marketers must carefully study consumers and if they want a product to be successful, adapt the packaging to their target consumers: you can have equally attractive packaging that will appeal differently to different kinds of consumers. A child will go for a popular cartoon character on a cereal box while a mother will more likely buy a product which is clearly labeled as being nutritional (which can cause family frictions in the weekly undertaking of grocery shopping).

It is also important to consider the quantity in which to pack a product: if you target older people who are likely to be living alone or in couple, sell them a product that is packaged in small quantities: they will be more likely to buy a pack of 2 slices of ham than a bargain bumper-pack that will probably go out of date before they get to eat it all.

Practicality of use is also important: the mother of young children will choose a product that is easy to open for her children's lunch-box, whereas a bachelor won't mind if a jam-jar is difficult to open.

There are a lot of variables to consider when deciding on the right packaging for a product and the main thing for a company to remember when choosing a package is that it must be adapted to consumer's needs.