Packaging is an extremely important part of your candle business. The right packaging helps to build brand loyalty, trust and identity. These are all crucial if you want to compete in the candle industry.
For this blog, I’m not going to discuss things like your containers and labels. This requires its own blog. This blog aims to go over the packaging used to pack your candles. The question we’ll answer is how this affects brand loyalty and identity.
Let me paste some examples of what I mean by packaging:
We’ve probably all received products before where they’ve come to us in a bland cardboard box. These companies I’m sure never left a lasting impression on us. If you want to stand out, you’ve got to think about your entire brand identity from colours to box types.
In this blog, I’m going to explain a few important reasons why I think packaging matters. This blog serves the purpose of the quick-fire style blogs I aim to do, the ones that explain one thing ( in this case packaging) to fully convey a message clearly.
Here are a few reasons why candle packaging matters for your business
Aesthetics
Candles as you may already know are typically bought as gifts. Many hampers contain candles, and I personally started making candles to gift to friends and family. Therefore, the look and feel of your products matter in terms of perception. Attractive candles make for better gifts. For example, well-designed packaging can make your candles appear more luxurious. This can allow you to then justify higher price points when you sell your candles.
Branding
your packaging is a massive part of your brand identity. We all recognise the iPhone for its white boxes and Nike for their famous shoeboxes. Therefore, consistent and thoughtful packaging helps to reinforce your brand’s identity. I discussed a bit about how to start curating a brand in my ‘How to start a candle business’ blog, so please check it out.
Niche
your packaging also helps to reinforce your niche. Say, for example, your niche is coffee-scented morning energising candles. Your packaging can represent this through coffee colours. Similarly, if you cater to sleep candle buyers, your packaging may be clean, minimal and calming like this candle on amazon. As well as the examples I already mentioned, high-quality and sophisticated-looking packaging can help position you more in line with the luxury candle market.
Differentiation
in a crowded candle market, your packaging is going to separate you from other sellers. This is a chance to be unique and refreshing, catering specifically to your community. People tend to build emotional connections with products and packaging is a great way to personalise your candles. You can pop in personal messages to further increase the emotional connection and potentially repeat purchases!
Functionality
you also want to design packaging that considers the ease-of-use of your customers. For example, Easily openable packaging can make using your products more enjoyable for people. Also, you may design packaging where people can put their candles in between uses to protect them from dirt and dust. So please, consider functionality when designing packaging.
Sustainability
many customers today are prioritising eco-friendly companies, and many companies are gearing their products toward this trend. If you decide to build an eco-friendly candle company, then packaging is going to matter. There are lots of eco-friendly and sustainable materials you can consider when designing your packaging. For example, recycled boxes, which can be cheaper and help appeal to more environmentally conscious people.
Protection
finally, packaging has other functional benefits. It protects your candles during shipping so they arrive at customers’ homes in the best condition. Candle jars tend to be made from fragile materials, be it glass or ceramics. So properly protecting them is vital for your customer’s experience. You don’t want bad reviews before the candles have even been lit. Check Out this reddit review of a horrible experience someone had with bad packaging.
Bubble wrap, packing paper and corrugated cardboard boxes all work. Ensure the bubble wrap and paper are tightly secured with tape. Remember to use good quality cardboard, you may want to consider double-walled for optimal safety when in transit.
Marketing
finally, aesthetically pleasing candle packaging is the ultimate marketing tool! Great-looking products are constantly being photographed. Think of all the people that snap pictures of their food before they dig in. Think about all that free marketing across so many social media sites. So, don’t skip the step of designing great-looking packaging. Pinterest is a community particularly geared towards beautiful-looking things. You can make use of this site for marketing your products, so good-looking packaging can directly help in your marketing endeavours.
Summary
To conclude, in this blog, I discussed some of the important reasons why you should focus a great deal of time on your packaging. Here’s what we learnt:
- aesthetics
- Branding
- Niche
- Differentiation
- functionality
- sustainability
- protection
- And finally, marketing
If you want to know how exactly to design packaging, my best advice is to use Photoroom to create an image, describe your brand and generate images. At the beginning of the blog i showed a few examples photoroom created for me when I simply typed ‘candle packaging’ without explaining a niche.
However, I suggest describing your niche so it generates a more personal result.
…In the next blog, I’m going to discuss the actual containers you can use. This matters for the same reasons mentioned above. However, I’m going to focus more on the differences between the containers, where to buy them and why some may be better. Think your glass, ceramics or cement containers.
Also, I’ll go into labelling, especially how to design labels and how to source them.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I hope these insights help inspire you as you begin your candle-making business. Stay tuned for more!
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