Packaging Strategies for Differentiating a Craft Business Brand

Thinking about starting a craft business? If so, what products will you sell? What features do those products have? How will consumers become interested in them? Are they already common in the market? What differentiation strategy do you have? What makes your brand special? Let’s take a look at the brand differentiation essential to starting a craft business, and how packaging affects it.

Why Brand Image Matters

If you’re considering starting a craft business, the first thing you need to think about is brand image. Consumer perception of a brand directly leads to purchases. Consumers don’t buy products simply because they need them. They gladly decide to buy when they resonate with the values a company stands for, or when they enjoy the particular feeling or impression they associate with the brand. The reason eco-friendly brands have recently been in the spotlight is that consumers like seeing themselves buy and use eco-friendly products. A brand forms a community. Among consumers who use that brand’s products, a sense of connection develops. That connection leads to repeat purchases, which increases trust in the brand itself and creates a major ripple effect. So what can you use to leave a lasting brand image in consumers’ minds and apply it to your craft business?

Here’s one of the most effective methods: How to Convey Your Brand Message Through Packaging Design

Why Differentiated Packaging Is Needed for a Craft Business

If you’re preparing to start a craft business, let’s first think from the consumer’s perspective. A product purchase is not as simple as it seems. Searching for the product, choosing it, paying for it, receiving it, taking it out, using it, or gifting it — every step is a vivid experience for the consumer. Product quality alone is not enough to create true differentiation. The entire purchasing journey needs to feel new and enjoyable for it to stay in the consumer’s memory. One of the best ways to add color to that experience is through differentiated packaging.

A product’s packaging carries the brand’s image. By looking at the packaging’s color, shape, texture, and size, consumers form expectations about the product. If it’s a craft product, that importance becomes even greater. Consumers who buy craft products such as candles, soap, and diffusers tend to be especially sensitive. They want to feel good about buying something beautiful, and they don’t hesitate to share that experience with others. The product images they share on social media become marketing in themselves.

Learn more: Why It’s Important to Create Brand Identity Packaging for Online Shops

Success Stories Driven by Craft Business Packaging Boxes

Source: hanablossom.com

Founded in 2001 and loved consistently for 20 years, candle brand Hana Blossom’s signature product is its delicately crafted flower-petal tea light candle. Since the cute, beautiful petal design is the product’s selling point, Hana Blossom chose a packaging style that highlights that design to the fullest. Customers can already tell, even before opening the box, that these candles are inspired by nature and made by local artisans in Thailand. Beautiful products need packaging that matches them.

What packaging design was popular last year? : 2021 Packaging Design Trends

What Types of Boxes Do You Need for a Craft Business?

The world of boxes is endless. Even if they hold the same product, different boxes can be created depending on the seller’s intent, the image they want to convey, and the specific use case. For those just starting to think about a craft business, let’s look at the types of boxes needed.

1. The Basics and a Must-Have: Paper Product Boxes

Paper product boxes are recommended for lightweight products or crafts that need their packaging colors to stand out. Compared with corrugated boxes, they allow for more detailed printing, so designs can be expressed with greater freedom.

• Candle boxes that safely protect candles

Candle boxes should have a comfortable design that suits the image of candles while also safely protecting fragile candles.

Get design inspiration before making your candle box! (A collection of beautiful candle box designs)

• Soap boxes with a clean image

Source: K9 Design

Soap boxes are typically designed in a convenient one-hand size with a clean, uncluttered look.

If you’d like to try it yourself, Go make a paper box now

2. For Extra Durability: Corrugated Packaging Boxes

Corrugated packaging boxes are ideal when the product is somewhat heavy or when multiple items are bundled together as a set. Because they are much sturdier than paper boxes, they can reliably package bulky or heavy products. And when selling several individual products packaged in paper boxes as a bundle, it’s also a good idea to use a corrugated box to provide a different design suited to that purpose.

• Gift boxes that feel good to receive, or subscription boxes sent regularly

Source: PurpleDog

Packaging boxes are also suitable for gift packaging, or as packaging boxes for subscription products shipped on a regular monthly basis.

Kucca, Bacon Box, and more — 7 subscription services worth watching these days

• Frame boxes made to fit standard frame sizes exactly

A frame box is a slightly thinner-than-usual box designed to fit standard frame sizes precisely and protect the frame. It opens and closes in a pizza-box-like style, making it stable yet easy to open, and as soon as the box is opened, the front of the frame is visible.

Want to learn more about sturdy packaging boxes? Go make a corrugated packaging box now

How to Easily and Conveniently Order Custom Boxes

Do you have a better sense now of the types of packaging needed for a craft business and how they can help differentiate your brand? On Packative, a platform specializing in small-batch box production, various box types are organized by product category, making it easy to browse and choose the boxes your craft business and products need. With the Packative Editor, which anyone can use to customize box designs easily, even without being a professional designer, you can try out different designs while checking the finished box shape in real time. It’s a great way to create beautiful, unique, high-quality packaging with just a few clicks, and get direct support for starting your craft business.

Want to learn more about Packative? : See Packative box types!