Are you good at observing things, or do you notice any product or packaging issues at supermarkets? You might have ignored it like most people, but in some cases, this can be life-threatening or at least lead to wastage of your money? Read more to learn why this happens and how companies handle them.
Today’s generation focuses more on worldly things than the value of some things; the best example of this is people buying products because of their unique or attractive packaging rather than its product. There are various roles of packaging like protecting the product, keeping the contamination away, easy storage and selling of creation, but importantly it creates the product’s character.
Table of Contents
Product Packaging Mistakes That Can Cost You Money
Poor Packaging Testing
Delivery or transporting the product can be rough as it has to go through a lot during this process. That’s why protective and durable packaging is essential. Damaged products can cause significant issues as customers won’t trust the brand again, and the primary cause for such problems is a lack of packaging testing. It is essential to run multiple levels of testing to select the proper packaging for every product. Businesses can do it easily with the help of online proofing system software available as this is their main feature.
Outdated Packaging
Another mistake that can affect your business is using old packaging. In today’s world, packaging defines the sales of every product, and if you fail to satisfy the customer in that task, it will be a significant loss to the company. Stay updated with trends and new packaging ideas so that the customer fan base stays maintained for you. Use more colors, shapes, and textures of the packaging to create a unique design for your packaging.
Machinery v/s labor
Both machinery and human labor have their benefits, but we can see that machinery is more efficient and cheap than human labor, looking at the data and broad comparison. If you are still entirely dependent on delivery, only this is like stopping yourself from better outcomes. A combination of both these can be more useful where machinery can do all the hard work, and human labor can control them for better productivity.
Ignoring Timely Maintenance
Cutting costs at several points is crucial for many companies, but if a company is doing that in case of maintenance, that can be a big issue later. Timely care is essential to get the best manufacturing results. Ignoring maintenance can lead to unanticipated downtime. Later on, this can lead to a complete breakdown.
Usage Of Wrong Materials
Different kinds of the product require unique packaging material and shape. Using inappropriate material can lead to a damaged product or time taking process to open/ access the product. Not only that, the packaging should be resealed at least once in case of return or exchange.
Strategies For Creating Error Free Packaging
Confirmed Most Updated Data
Developing a product requires a lot of time; a lot of data/ information is added and replaced during that duration. Due to minor ignorance, sometimes the wrong version of the file gets used for packaging that can lead to recalls or delayed production. Ensure that the version of the product file used is the finalized version or most updated so that this can’t cause delays in manufacturing or recalls.
Barcode Checking
A large number of recalls happen due to mislabeling of barcodes. Barcodes carry crucial information related to products that customers can access in detail just by scanning them. But with so many products at warehouses/ factories, mislabeling of barcodes is a daily thing. Mixing barcodes is a different thing, but for barcodes, the place of barcodes is also essential. For every product, there’s an FPO (For position only) which represents the place where a barcode must be placed. If a barcode isn’t in that specific position, it also needs to be corrected before releasing it in public.
Proofreading
Every product needs to have some specific information mentioned on its back, for example, allergens, how to use and store, manufacturing and expiry, etc. These are considered crucial information, and any form of mistake will be regarded as misleading. It can result in lawsuits, and if the error is too severe, authorities can even ban that product from the environment with a large sum amount as acceptable. Staff should check the information before adding it to the printer and once the printing is done. Two times of proofreading is a must for this part, at least.
Standardize On Design Tools
The Best Open Source Workflow Engines and Free BPM Software Tools
Multiple software and tools are required to get the product done, each with specific functions and settings. This way, the information is distributed among various devices and can confuse fonts, language, etc. If you can fix the parts and features of that software in advance, it can decrease the confusion by a considerable percentage.
Check For Right Product
In most places, printers are working on multiple projects simultaneously, as the information of different projects is saved. It is a method of saving cost at the same time it can cause issues as the description/ information of products can be mixed leading to printing the wrong product. Every product requires unique information; this way, inaccurate printing information will lead to redoing the work. It will cost money, time, effort, and loss of raw material, and a lot of wastage that needs to be removed.
Quality And Modifications
Usage of the latest technologies in your work can be a good decision as these days, most of the software comes to be some types of testing features where you can check or compare expected products results and actual results. Some can also let you know where the product is lacking. You can save a lot of time and discussions needed among team members to look for the error.
Wrapping It Up!
We can quickly solve the issues faced in the packaging process with some easy precautions done at the right time. Proper management of the functions is needed to solve the errors in the operation of packaging.
