Because online shoppers lack the ability to touch and feel your product, you have to rely on visuals to provide the right perception of your brand. Although text descriptions and reviews are important in eCommerce, the look of your product is ultimately what influences a customer.
Unsurprisingly, a large part of this visual impact comes from cosmetic packaging. The way a product looks in an online photo says everything — as online consumers have no other senses to rely on. As SilkRoute Strategists President Mary Manning has pointed out, photos posted online get 85% more clicks than links. Potential customers are drawn in by the way your product or brand looks. This sounds like a simple concept, but it’s much more involved in ecommerce.
At the Luxe Pack New York seminar, industry experts discussed this very topic. According to Beauty Packaging, these experts explained that “emotional branding” is the new standard in marketing online. Not only does your packaging need to be functional, it also needs to visually evoke the appropriate emotions to attract the consumer. When you think about it, this is a feat much easier accomplished through sound or smell. It’s usually a song or scent that stirs up certain feelings — when were you last intrigued by a commercial on mute?
Cosmetic Packaging and Fragrances
As you can imagine, it is exceedingly difficult for fragrance companies to market themselves online. These companies need to get creative. Using Christian Dior’s J’Adore as an example, we can see how this is done effectively. We are all familiar with the commercials — Charlize Theron draped in glittering gold on a runway somewhere fabulous. The marketing team at Christian Dior decided to translate this look into the packaging by putting the perfume in an elegantly shaped gold bottle. When online shoppers were asked what they liked most about the product, the answer was the packaging. This proves that brand awareness combined with unique packaging can go a long way in ecommerce.
The bottom line is that like physical products, ecommerce products have only a few seconds to impress a potential customer. However, the customers’ inability to touch or smell the product is what makes online marketing so challenging. When it comes to ecommerce, marketers must be confident in their cosmetic packaging.