If the eyes are the window to the soul, a beauty brand’s packaging is a window to its essence. “In many instances, the packaging is the first experience or impression a consumer has with a brand,” says Gina Strohl, a beauty and wellness packaging professionals at Chicago-based Berlin Packaging, a supplier of packaging products and services. “Packaging can communicate the brand’s values and positioning such as sustainability, social causes, target consumers and functional advantages. It can also provide more practical solutions like protecting the product from UV and contamination, and can withstand the rigors of e-commerce pick, pack and ship operations.” Berlin Packaging is immersed in the beauty and personal care industry, enabling it to understand the nuances and dynamics of each category, including skincare, body care, haircare, cosmetics, fragrances, oral care and more. The company and its in-house design agency, Studio One Eleven, have joined forces with countless beauty and personal care companies, from widely recognizable national brands to independent startups, to elevate branding, accelerate speed to market and maximize profits. Across tubes, pumps, jars. bottles, sprayers and special dispensers, Berlin Packaging offers stock, custom, and sustainable packaging solutions and design services to help brands stand out online and in stores, spas and salons, and succeed in the market by finding the perfect packaging for their products and positioning. “The beauty and personal care aisles are flooded with products. Obtaining shelf space is difficult, and e-commerce is highly competitive,” says Strohl. “Exceptional package design differentiates a brand from its competitors and gets noticed by consumers. Shelf presence and visual impact drive product sales, especially in salons.” Beauty Independent spoke with Strohl along with other packaging professionals at Berlin Packaging—Liam Hawry, Shannon Micheli, Kim Maddox, Kim Haga and Jonathan Rabinowitz—about the company’s mission, packaging design innovations and sustainable options in the space. 
Berlin Packaging is immersed in the beauty and personal care industry, enabling it to understand the nuances and dynamics of each category, including skincare, body care, haircare, cosmetics, fragrances, oral care and more.
Berlin Packaging’s goals are to help brands increase sales, reduce costs and improve productivity. How do you achieve those goals?
Strohl: As the only global Hybrid Packaging Supplier, Berlin Packaging brings together the best of manufacturing, distribution and income-adding service providers. We are not beholden to a specific material or process and can find the most cost-effective solutions through our worldwide network and partnerships with more than 1,700 suppliers. Over the past three years, Berlin Packaging has quantitatively added more than $240 million in profit to our customers as a unique benefit of doing business with us.
Our size and total spend with manufacturers and shippers provide economies of scale and cost savings that we can pass on to our customers. We help increase sales by providing products with the highest quality standards, which reduce returns and instill customer trust.
For smaller orders and customers, Berlin Packaging offers convenient 24/7 online ordering through our e-commerce site, an inside sales team, an online product catalog, customer care advocates that can answer questions, and a team of sourcing and merchandising specialists looking for new packaging innovations. We stock more than 5,500 different packaging components and can ship orders the same day. Samples are available from our in-stock items.
Larger customers can take advantage of our suite of services such as global sourcing, package design, supply chain, quality, warehousing, financing and more. For example, warehousing and inventory services benefit our customers’ cash flow. Reducing costs and improving productivity increase customers’ margins.
What packaging innovations do you offer to beauty and personal care brands?
Hawry: Berlin Packaging’s creative services team, Studio One Eleven, offers no-charge design and development engagements for qualified customers in exchange for packaging business. This may include fully custom components or graphics and brand development. We focus on building brands, and tailor innovations to meet our customers’ needs and requirements.
Whether companies are looking to build a new brand or refresh an existing one, Berlin Packaging can design and supply your packaging. We’ve brought innovation to premium skincare, salon haircare and more. We’re also launching a line of Studio-designed e-commerce friendly pumps and looking for early adopters. When it comes to beauty and personal care packaging, we have you covered.
Strohl: Our customizable decoration options enable customers of all sizes to transform their stock packaging into one-of-a-kind brands with high shelf appeal. A custom label creation tool allows customers to use their own label designs or choose from 70 label templates that can be personalized with text, multiple color options, and many different shapes. The peel-and-stick labels are available in 9-by-12 sheets or larger rolls. The minimum order for rolls is 250 labels. A minimum order for sheets is a single sheet.
For minimum orders of $10,000, Berlin Packaging offers a variety of decorating options: spray coating, frosting, acid etching, hot stamping, metalizing, flexographic printing, pressure-sensitive labeling, shrink sleeves, in-mold labeling and more.
Why is Berlin Packaging the right partner for independent beauty brands?
Micheli: Berlin Packaging’s e-commerce platform offers self-serve convenience without high minimum order quantities. New customers can purchase packaging components online for a minimum order of $100.
Our size, global partnerships and extensive market knowledge provide a broad range of expertise to emerging brands that are likely to have limited resources. We are flexible and offer numerous options, from stock to custom, to help brands find the right package. As startup brands develop and mature, we have the resources to support and grow with them.
Maddox: Collaboration is the key to achieving lower costs, improved productivity and increased sales. Our consultative approach gets to the customer’s core requirements, challenges and goals to improve or even change their approach to packaging and logistics.
Strohl: Berlin Packaging has in-depth knowledge of the cosmetics and personal health and beauty categories, and can guide emerging brands to success and help them avoid pitfalls. And we have multiple resources to help launch a new product or brand, including market research to steer concept development. Because of our scalability, we can easily accommodate our customers’ business growth.
Through Berlin Packaging’s e-commerce platform, new customers can purchase packaging components with a minimum order of $100.
Budget constraints and minimum order quantities (MOQs) are often issues for independent brands. What are your MOQs?
Micheli: Berlin Packaging’s online division offers MOQs as low as $100 per order. For bulk, quantity or wholesale orders starting around $10,000, our dedicated team of packaging consultants can help you find the right package.
The cost of packaging can vary depending on the item, stock versus custom, quantity, final specs and transportation, so it’s challenging to determine a typical cost or range. As a general rule, the packaging budget is closely related to the customer’s sell price.
Every packaging job is different, so it’s best to talk with a packaging consultant about your packaging needs.
What makes a good working relationship between a founder and packaging supplier? What are avoidable mistakes you see entrepreneurs make?
Haga: Brand owners need to be clear about what they want by outlining a project plan and goals, providing clear timelines and budgets. It’s important to know the markets you are serving—e-commerce, national chains, other retailers—for product launch. National retailers have their internal processes for validating packaging, and Berlin Packaging can assist with this authorization.
Strohl: Understanding the real costs associated with packaging, which is a technical endeavor, is a key success factor. Some startup brands may want to launch with custom packaging, but this will add costs and time. Consider stock packaging with decorative enhancements as this may be a new brand’s best solution at the time. No one wants quality mistakes, and there is a tremendous amount of detail in doing packaging right. It takes time and diligence to avoid mistakes.
Maddox: Keep in mind that your packaging supplier is your business partner. Don’t stop the dialogue once the product launches. Sharing business insights and information continually with your supplier helps them identify different packaging options and create greater value for your brand. It’s also a good idea to provide your supplier with forecasting data to prevent the risk of running out of product.
Sustainability is a hot topic in beauty packaging right now. How is Berlin Packaging addressing it?
Rabinowitz: Sustainability means different things to different people. We work with our customers to understand their sustainability goals and present them with sustainable packaging options—post-consumer recycled (PCR) resin, ocean-bound plastic, bio-resin, container light-weighting, plant-based resin, carbon footprint analysis, mono-material tubes, aluminum packaging, fewer transportation miles, refillable packaging, materials with higher recycling rates, reusable packaging and more.
In one quarter alone, Berlin Packaging presented our customers with sustainable packaging options offering 3.7 million kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, equivalent to preserving more than 4,000 acres of forest annually or saving 950 million gallons of water per year.
To get started on your next packaging project, contact Berlin Packaging today.
Source link : https://www.beautyindependent.com/how-berlin-packaging-helps-brands-package-more-profit
