Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality (28 page)

Everything about your packaging, from its size and shape, to the colors, to the image on the front, to the text and its placement, and even the font, will matter, and will have to convey your product’s key selling points like a shot to your consumers’ heart.

Types of Packaging

There are several types of packaging. In brick-and-mortar stores, you generally see small consumer goods packaged on hangtags, in clamshells, or blister packs that hang off of rods, while larger items like vacuum cleaners, food processors, or jewelry boxes come in four-color boxes that reside on shelves. The designs of these boxes often follow the same general formula: a big image of the product, a brand name, and a description.

Key to great packaging is gorgeous, informative visuals that immediately convey what your product is and how it works. Be
careful not to add too many bells and whistles that could distract from your product, which should be the star of the show. Text should be clear and punchy. Do not expect anyone to read more than a few words. Your text is there to supplement your visuals and explain your value proposition in a way that a picture of your product cannot. Less is more nowadays, and frequently consumer brands are creating beautiful, sophisticated packaging that speaks volumes with very little text.

You can send a powerful message about the product inside the box with a bright punch of color or minimalist white, or a playful or dramatic font. A clever shape can get you noticed, but it can also work against you. For example,
Shark Tank
entrepreneurs Hanna and Mark Lim met with initial enthusiasm from big-box stores for their innovative sippy cup, but then ran into a problem when the stores questioned whether the cute but folded-paper-bag-shaped packaging would allow them to fit enough product on the shelves.
Jordan Eisenberg, founder of UrgentRX, had to get creative to solve a problem caused by his product’s unusual packaging. His single-dose packets of flavored, powdered versions of over-the-counter medicines couldn’t get placement in pharmacies until he created his own, custom-made display units that took advantage of unused space at the checkout counter.

As always, you have to do your research when deciding what kind of packaging to use. Visit the retailers that sell to your market and look at what styles are currently popular. What appeals to you? What catches your eye? Big brands pay hundreds of thousands of market research dollars when designing their packaging; you can learn from them and their packaging and see how they marketed the products, what colors they used, what images, and what style. Analyze why the packaging was appealing to you or why it caught your eye.

While you don’t want to copy them, you should pay attention to what they’re doing and why they use the style they do to sell the product inside. For example, often they will use a large photo of the product to explain what it is instead of a lot of wording. There’s a reason for that: people don’t take the time to read a lot of words on packages. They need to be able to see the product and immediately understand it. They don’t like busy packaging with a lot going on and lots of text; they just won’t take the time to decipher it.

My philosophy is that packaging should be clean and use great images to tell the product’s story. I imagine myself rushing down the aisle and I think:
What caught my attention on the shelf? What did I notice? Did I instantly understand what the product is? Did it make me want to buy it?

As discussed, historically, retailers didn’t like dealing with inventors selling just one SKU, but recently stores are showing more willingness to work with entrepreneurs, going so far as to develop initiatives to help get them started. Walmart, for example, started the Get on the Shelf contest, and QVC has the Sprouts program. Retailers can often recommend packagers, and in turn the packagers will probably give you the names of printers with whom they do business.

Package Design

When it comes to actually designing your packaging, unless you have a graphic design background, you’ll want to hire a professional to help you create something unique, enticing, and effective. Get referrals if you can. If not, most graphic designers have their portfolios available for review on the Internet. Try to choose one with experience in package design, although expect the fee to be on the high end if you hire someone who has designed for very successful big brands and products. If you are on a budget,
you could also opt to work with a crowdsourcing company, such as DesignCrowd, that allows you to post your project and receive bids from designers around the world. The Internet can give you access to fantastic talent at extremely affordable rates. The disadvantage, of course, is that more often than not you won’t be able to meet your designer in person. Regardless, the most important thing to look for in graphic designers, besides talent, is whether they understand your product and seem excited and intrigued by it.

Once you hire your photographer and graphic designer, make sure you are clear about your vision. It’s very hard for graphic designers and artists to work when they don’t have any idea what you want. Being specific makes their jobs easier. In addition, time is money, and if you don’t stay involved, your designers may inadvertently take things in a direction you didn’t want to go, and then you’ll have to start all over again. That can cost you dearly. I trusted my designers, but I stayed close by while they worked, attending the photo shoots, propping my organizer with earrings, offering my thoughts on design, layout, and even fonts. I was on a budget, so I hired a relative newcomer to the field who had an impressive portfolio but little experience with packaging. She did a good job, but because she hadn’t yet been around the block enough to recognize red flags, she couldn’t anticipate what was coming next.

It took me hours to select and hang all the beautiful earrings on the organizer when I was preparing it for the packaging photo shoot. I used all of my own stuff so I wouldn’t have to buy fifty new pair of earrings. Since my organizer was clear plastic, I thought setting it against a dark background would make it pop. I told the graphic designer to design a black box. The end result was striking—the clear organizer looked beautiful against the glossy black background. The problem was that none of us knew that it
is extremely risky to work with so much black ink. Any print job saturated with such a heavy concentration of color has a tendency to bleed, black worst of all. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened when the press operator wasn’t paying attention during the print run.

I managed to get the problem resolved (the details of that story appear in
Chapter 9
), but from then on, at least in the early days, every time the printer would do a run, I would stand by the printing press and watch the first sheets that came out to make sure the colors were true. I would sign off on one sheet that the printer kept, and I would take another one with me. This way, we would both have a sample to refer to for the remainder of the print run. We also do this to this day with product samples. They’re never perfect the first time around. Once I get a first sample, I offer my feedback about what changes are needed. We go through several rounds to perfect the sample before it’s finalized. Once I’ve approved the final sample, my supplier keeps one, I keep one, and that’s the sample the rest of the production should match.

Eventually, when your business is big enough, you will be able to hire someone to supervise production; and obviously if you are manufacturing overseas, this will be a job for the representative you hire to advocate on your behalf. But in the beginning, whenever you can, try to be present at every stage of production so that you can get a feel for how the process works and what problems to look out for.

This is a common practice in manufacturing that ensures
consistency. I learned my lesson from that printing disaster, and my team knows to have the printer send us a proof before running a print job to make sure the colors are right. For the record, once we used up our thousands of black boxes, we switched the color to much lighter lavender blue, which eliminated the possibility of the problems we’d faced with the black ink. In addition, by then I had decided the lavender was an even more attractive color to the female eye.

Packaging Specifications

You won’t even necessarily need a four-color box if your product is going to be sold online or through television channels. On QVC, for example, it’s the demonstrability of a product that sells a product, not the aesthetic of its packaging. But anything that will travel through the mail or UPS will need to be packaged in a drop-shippable box that can pass an eleven-point drop test: your product can be picked up and dropped eleven times from a distance of thirty inches onto a concrete surface, landing on all corners, flat surfaces, and two edges, and not suffer any damage. These plain brown corrugated cartons vary in size and are measured in the number of “flutes” per linear foot. The most common one used for shipping purposes is the C-flute. Your packager should be able to advise you on the best packaging option for your product, including whether to include additional immobilizers such as Styrofoam endcaps, bubble wrap, or foam peanuts.

Your retailer’s manual should explain all packaging and shipping requirements. QVC has a notoriously stringent quality assurance department that will not allow a purchase order to go through until it has met all requirements, such as passing the eleven-point drop test, displaying all proper labels, and exhibiting all documentation that the product complies with necessary rules and regulations. Of course, they also insist on trying your
product and making sure that it works the way you say it will, and that it is in good condition and will leave their customers more than satisfied.

Above all, be true to yourself. You want to be proud of every aspect of your invention. Don’t settle until you’re satisfied that your manufacturer, your designer, your printer, and your packager are all working together to make your product look its absolute best.

MANUFACTURING AND PACKAGING TO-DO LIST:

Compile a list of manufacturers with good reputations for producing goods in your product category.

If producing locally, make appointments to visit and meet with the individuals who would be in charge of your product.

If producing overseas, contact testing labs to see if the factory you’re interested in is in good standing and is socially responsible.