Packaging should be more than a means of protecting coffee beans, maintaining freshness, and ensuring the product arrives at the customer safely.
During a 30-minute shopping session, the average consumer will be exposed to over 20,000 product choices. Therefore, the design of your coffee packaging is your first and best chance to grab their attention.
Many studies show if a product’s retail packaging looks attractive and interesting, consumers are likely to form a positive perception of the brand.
Shaped through various means, including language, images, typeface, and colour schemes, custom retail coffee packaging is essential to impart a distinct and lasting impression on customers.
Your coffee packaging can be your most powerful marketing tool. Read on to discover how to design custom retail coffee packaging that defines your brand.
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Wholesale vs retail: Which is the best sales avenue for roasters?
For coffee roasters, there are two principal routes to market: wholesale and retail.
Wholesaling coffee typically means supplying coffee shops and small retailers in bulk, or contract toasting for other businesses.
Notably, there are a few advantages to selling coffee wholesale over retail. For instance, you can build a higher volume of sales quickly without having to invest in marketing to new customers.
Wholesale may also be more consistent as it produces a predictable revenue stream. This is due to having fewer but larger customers, which can help you plan all aspects of your business more thoroughly.
That said, maintaining wholesale relationships is of the utmost importance as the loss of just one customer can create a significant dent in your revenue.
You may also find due to the volume of wholesale orders, and the retailers’ need to make a profit, you may be unable to achieve the same profit margins on your coffee as you would by retailing it yourself.
You may also become frustrated by the lack of control over how your product is presented to the public. Therefore, if the aim is to build a reputation of impeccable quality, a retail business model is probably best.
This route can help you develop the ability to understand your customer and adapt to the demands of an evolving market.
Notably, it is a beneficial time to be a part of the at-home coffee market, as the way societies consume coffee is undergoing a fundamental change.
As the popularity of at-home coffee brewing continues to grow, retail avenues, particularly online, allow roasters to capitalise on this demand. Subscription services, in particular, seem to be the future of retail coffee.
According to a 2020 Specialty Coffee Association report, subscription sales recorded a 109% increase during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ultimately, your decision regarding your distribution strategy will depend on the type of relationship you want with your customer.
Additionally, it will depend on how quickly you want to scale up your business. If your goal is to reach a high production volume rapidly, wholesale may be a more appropriate route.
However, if building a dialogue with an informed client base is important to you, your business may be better suited to retail.
Important to note is there is value to be found in diversifying your income stream and catering simultaneously to both routes to market with your product.
Why is custom coffee packaging important?
Custom-printed coffee packaging is essential to your business, as it can act as one of your most valuable marketing tools.
Custom retail coffee bags can be an effective way to convey your brand story to customers. They should be able to make a fair guess at your company’s values, stylistic preferences, and the level of attention to detail to expect from a quick glance at your packaging.
What’s more, your custom coffee bags should add volume to your brand voice, ensuring you stand out from your competition.
For example, on a shelf dominated by minimalist packaging designs, using a maximalist design on your retail coffee bags will ensure they attract attention.
Custom print coffee packaging offers further opportunities in its ability to allow roasters to add information to the bags and other packaging elements.
Specialty coffee consumers are becoming increasingly interested in the provenance of their beans. As a result, they are likely to read more information about a product.
This could take the form of brew guides, ratios, and recipes, as well as detailed origin information that includes details of the growers.
More so, it should include the eco-credentials of the packaging itself, as well as how to dispose of it.
What to consider when designing custom retail coffee packaging
When putting together the design of your coffee packaging, there is a lot to bear in mind.
First, it must be fit for its purpose: the packaging must get the beans from the roastery to the customer with minimal risk of damage and without compromising shelf-life.
Additionally, the environmental credentials of your packaging should also be one of your first requirements.
A little creativity can go a long way when deciding where to place this important information on your coffee bags.
For instance, brewing instructions could be printed on the inside of a custom-printed coffee box. Alternatively, you could choose to include an information card to free up space for a more opulent artistic design on the coffee packaging itself.
These extra details will contribute to the overall “unboxing experience” that has become so important in a subscription-driven market.
Your packaging could also serve as an effective way to upsell other offerings. For instance, why not consider including product suggestions on your custom coffee packaging?
Custom printing the packaging for your retail coffee bags gives you the best platform to create a coherent and recognisable brand identity.
It will turn your products into their own free advert, as customers will literally pay to have a reminder of your brand sitting on their counter week after week.
Make sure that you create the right impression with a well-thought-out and executed coffee bag design.
MTPak Coffee offers roasters and coffee shops a range of 100% recyclable coffee packaging options that can be custom-printed to your business specifications.
Choose from renewable materials such as kraft paper, rice paper, or multilayer LDPE packaging with an environmentally friendly PLA lining.
Take control over the design process by building your own coffee bag. We use innovative digital printing technology to ensure your custom-printed coffee packaging is a perfect representative of your brand.
We offer a quick turnaround time of 40-hours and 24-hour shipping time, and low minimum order quantities (MOQs) to micro-roasters who are looking to remain agile while showcasing a commitment to sustainability.
