Many brand managers are aware of the branding, marketing and image possibilities that custom packaging presents. 

But to many of those brand managers, custom packaging is also a cost. Businesses that rely on custom packaging want to do so while keeping costs down without sacrificing performance. 

Value-engineered packaging, a concept that solves this problem, is a solution that’s all too often overlooked. 

What exactly is value-engineered packaging?

Value-engineered packaging is the process of designing a packaging solution from the ground up for a specific product or products. The direct benefits include less waste, improved security, and better branding, while in-direct benefits include more space on warehouse shelves, improved fulfilment and lower packaging weights. 

Packaging isn’t always a box

Value engineering your packaging may mean using an entirely different product than the one you are now. 

Standardised letterbox boxes might be your go-to solution, but do you really need a box at all? Swap a rigid cardboard box for something like a lightweight paper mailing bag or another form of durable postage bag. 

Designing packaging from the ground up often means challenging the status quo – which, in most packaging cases, is a thick, heavy box. 

The benefits of value-engineered packaging

Being able to cater to your specific operational needs, as you just saw, is one of the giant benefits of value engineering your packaging design. 

But there are plenty more benefits to creating some fancy packaging. 

Build a better image

Ikea, a global corporation based on leveraging the scales of economy sells their standard four-pack of drinking glasses like this:

Whereas a high-end brand that creates whiskey glasses dedicated to creating an experience around the drink offers their glasses in packaging like this:

Value-engineered packaging reflects how you, the business owner, feel about your own brand identity and what values you present to your customers. 

You didn’t have to create packaging from the ground up, but you did. 

The statement that such a move makes about your brand is a powerful one – ‘we go beyond adequate in every way’. You could have done something standard and generic, but you chose not to.

It puts sustainability front & centre.

Sustainability isn’t just using cutting edge materials technology, planting trees to offset carbon emissions or marketing jargon not far off greenwashing. 

Quite often, making the switch to eco-packaging is as easy as using only what’s necessary and getting that material certified. From a raw design point of view, your focus is on using as little material as possible. This attitude creates the best possible foundation for sustainable design, like material substitution. 

Save space and weight.

Any consumable that can be made to fit within the constraints of your storage space is an appetising one. When designed from the ground up, your value-engineered packaging can be designed to package the product perfectly, but also to fit within your given storage facilities. 

A fine example of this is candle packaging. Many sellers use a form of round packaging, like a tube. This is great for branding, but terrible for space-saving in a warehouse. 

Lower shipping costs to pass on

The space and weight savings that come from value-engineered packaging create lower shipping costs for you and, therefore, lower shipping costs for you to pass on to your customers.

A single packaging product for more SKUs

Having a single packaging product that suits more of your products minimises the potential for fulfilment errors. 

Value-engineered packaging can amalgamate the packaging for several products of a similar size and shape. This process ultimately means you can buy higher volumes of that one packaging product, leveraging the economies of scale and putting more savings into your pocket. 

Better order fulfilment

Whether your warehouse uses people-power, robotics or both, value-engineered packaging can improve efficiency. While value-engineered packaging can create a more complex design, you can also optimise the assembly process. On a smaller scale, shaving 5 seconds off the time it takes to assemble a box, but on a larger scale, or if you’re using a third-party fulfilment service, those 5 seconds cost money. 

Throughout the design process, your customised packaging can be designed with human or robotic assembly in mind. As a growing and scaling brand, these processes and the time spent on them will only increase in importance. 

Conclusion

Saving money, taking care of the environment, and speeding up processes. Your packaging plays a huge role in all of these areas, but it’s often overlooked. 

When implementing value-engineered packaging, you’re able to design your packaging with all of these constraints in mind. 

The result is something that ticks all the boxes you need it to and presents your brand in an entirely different light than your competitors. 

Amazon is one of the most popular and renowned e-commerce platforms in the world, racking up a staggering 885 million visits each month. The retail giant has a huge customer base and, through its marketplace, allows businesses to create their own Amazon store to sell their goods.

And with a ready customer base, as well as the ability to quickly export product descriptions, promote goods and build their brand, is it any wonder that lots of businesses choose to sell through Amazon?

Not to mention that you can become an Amazon seller anytime, so it’s perfect if you need to give your sales a quick boost and continue to grow your brand.

So if you’ve decided that you want to start an Amazon store, but you’re not sure how to go about setting it up, this guide is for you. Below, we’re going to take an in-depth look at how you can set up your own storefront on Amazon.

Read on to find out how.

Choose the selling plan that’s right for you

Firstly, you need to decide whether you need an individual or professional selling plan. If you choose the individual plan, you’ll pay $0.99 every time you sell an item. As such, this plan is best suited to those who sell fewer than 40 units a month.

Alternatively, the professional plan costs a fixed price of $39.99 per month, no matter how many items you sell during this time. This is better suited to those who sell more and want to advertise products and use advanced selling tools like APIs and reports.

Another important aspect worth noting is that you can sell most things on your Amazon page, but some categories require that you have a professional seller account.

For example, books, accessories, clothing, toys, sports equipment and instruments can all be sold on an individual plan. However, products such as alcohol, collectable coins, dietary supplements, medical devices and more can only be sold via a professional account.

You can learn more about restricted products here.

Create a sellers account

Once you know what type of plan is best suited to your business needs, it’s time to set up a seller account.

You can use your customer account to start selling your goods if you wish, or you can create a new seller account with your business email if you’d prefer to keep things separate. When setting up a new business account, you’ll need:

• An email address
• A chargeable credit card
• Some form of government ID
• Your tax information
• Your phone number
• A bank account to receive proceeds from your sales

Now you have an account, you can begin adding and listing your products for sale.

Add your products

At this point, you need to make sure you have a clear idea of what it is you’re going to be selling and that you have the correct seller plan in place. When everything is in order, you can start adding your products.

To do this, you need to create a product listing in the seller centre. You need to make sure that every product you add contains all the correct and most helpful information. This means you need to include:

• A product identifier – such as GTIN, UPC, ISBN or EAN
• The price – and any special offers
• Shipping options
• Product details – including name, brand, quality, category, colours, sizes, etc.
• The availability – and quantity of your product 
• Description – highlighting the key features and benefits
• Images – 500 x 500 or 1,000 x 1,000 pixels to increase listing quality

By making sure your descriptions are as accurate and helpful as possible, it makes it easier for customers to use keywords and search terms to help them find your product. Not only this, but it means that customers are more likely to buy from you and leave a positive review rather than buying a product that turns out to be disappointing or misleading.

If the product you’re listing already exists on Amazon, the product identifier will show the existing listing. This way, you can export the existing description straight to your page if you wish to.

However, if you’re the first seller to offer a certain product, you’ll have to create a brand new listing. Your details will be displayed on the product’s detail page, and this is where your customers will find all of the relevant information they need about your item.

You need to repeat the process and create a listing for every product you want to add to your Amazon store.

Start attracting customers to your store

Once all your products have been listed, you need to let your customers know you’re there.

In the first instance, ensuring your product descriptions are keyword-rich, as we mentioned above, makes it much easier for consumers to find your goods. But this doesn’t mean you don’t need to draw attention to your listings as well.

One of the best ways to get your goods out there is to shout about them on your other channels. For example, promoting your products and offers on your social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. You could also send out an email to your mailing list letting them know you’ve opened a store on Amazon.

There are also some other built-in tools that Amazon offers to help you boost brand awareness. You can use Amazon advertising to help your products become more visible; you can also run deals and offers.

Another great way to secure customers is to offer fast shipping and set competitive prices. This can help you to stand out for other sellers, and the more items you sell, the higher your products will appear on Amazon search results.

Secure some good reviews

And finally, once you’ve begun making sales on your store, you should encourage customers to leave reviews. This can be done by sending follow up emails, as well as using social media. You could politely ask for reviews or possibly even incentivise customers to leave them.

The more positive reviews you acquire on your store, the more visibility your products will get. Plus, product reviews benefit customers, not just you as a seller, because they help people to make more informed buying decisions.

The vendor management service provided by ‘medius’ is one of the key components of the service. Optimizing the supply chain begins with aligning all of its elements. With Supplier Management Systems, all forms of deteriorating supplier relationships will be eliminated, including delays, errors, overages, missed opportunities, and dissatisfaction with suppliers. 

All types of businesses need a vendor management system when they want to expand or enter a new market. To provide its clients with comprehensive solutions, media services leverages its supply management system.

Integrating strategic alliances with management systems

In comparison with traditional supplier management systems, Supplier Management Systems offer some advantages. The first benefit is that third-party certification helps you ensure your suppliers meet quality benchmarks. Your suppliers’ compliance with standards and regulations is assured by third-party accreditation. In addition to supplying extensive and detailed feedback, third-party accreditation enables alignment of all aspects of supply chain performance, which ultimately leads to increased customer satisfaction.

You can manage your vendors and inventories easily using a Supplier Management System.

Additionally, you can improve your production efficiency by monitoring your manufacturing process. By using the Supplier Management System, you will have access to the extensive information about your supplier and vendor relationships. Your supply and sales processes can be managed and controlled with the software.

Maintaining a relationship with our suppliers

Information about every supplier is provided by the Supplier Management System. Your supplier performance management system investment can be maximized by utilizing the System. Manage your suppliers with the medius Supplier Management System, and you’ll have the ability to evaluate their performance and value. From this analysis, you can make the most of your investments.

Prequalification for most of your projects can be achieved through the Supplier Management System. Furthermore, it helps you get prequalified for projects involving short-term investment. For more information about how to apply for short-term investments, please click here. You may also prequalify using the mediums Supplier Management System. These investments can be made in projects involving minimal risk and requiring a short duration.

You can evaluate a supplier’s performance by prequalifying them. An analysis of the supplier’s performance in the past is provided by the supplier management system. By doing so, you can determine whether the supplier you are considering for a contract is a good match for your needs. You can get a prequalification package that is suitable for a particular project when using the Supplier Management System.

A supplier management system based on best practices has many advantages. The leading supply chain management systems recommend best practices to you. By identifying your customer’s needs, determining the type of supplier you should hire, and identifying your competition, you can develop best practices.

Relationship management with suppliers begins with managing supplier data. There are many moving parts within the supply chain. The supply chain is made up of many interrelated parts, including manufacturers, suppliers, agents, salespeople, installation technicians, administrative staff, office, and data entry staff, among others. Each part of the chain contributes to its success. To help these parts of the supply chain work together successfully, supplier management systems make use of a framework, rules, and metrics.

By doing so, suppliers and their clients can manage their relationships more effectively. A supplier quality management solution lets you manage information about suppliers from several sources at once. Managing supplier addresses, orders, returns, supplier automation, and quality begins with data entry, and moves on to supplier management, order management, and return management. This can all be automated, enabling faster and easier workflows. Additionally, this allows suppliers to assess their vendors quickly so they can be sure they’re hiring the right talent.

Continuous data collection and analysis are necessary for the best supplier relationships.

To gain a competitive edge, suppliers need to monitor the performance of their relationships with clients regularly. To formulate strategic plans, management tools need access to this data in the form of reports and analyses. To stay ahead of the market and increase market share, suppliers must also continually improve their networks.

Companies have been made a whole lot easier by supplier management solutions. Through them, information can be gathered from multiple sources in one place. Consequently, the company is better able to develop solutions and prevent problems in the future.

Consumer behaviours, expectations and eCommerce models have completely transformed in the past few years. Nowadays, every buying decision is influenced by numerous vital factors that were insignificant or didn’t even exist a few years ago.

This is also reflected in the response of consumers to a premium experience, which we can get an idea of using these stats:

• As per this survey by PwC, 73% of customers surveyed expressed that customer experience is an essential factor in their purchasing decisions.
• As per a survey by Segment, personalised recommendations made 49% of shoppers indulge in impulse buying, and a whopping 44% of customers will become repeat buyers after getting personalised experiences.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are hundreds of statistics pointing to the importance of customer experience.

Does that mean the customer experience is a clear winner? Not yet, let’s explore the importance of both product and customer experience before we get to a conclusion.

The changing customer journeys

Modern trends in customer experience offered by companies have changed the consumer journey. People no longer buy products instantly, and every purchase is usually made after:

• The customer checks out online reviews for the product/service
• The customer can resonate with your branding, i.e., website, social media and other touchpoints
• The customer perceives your brand as a premium one considering the digital footprint of your brand

The link between historical and the current customer expectations

Customer expectations and buying journeys are actually nothing new and have been part of human society since forever. If you remember the pre-online and pre-eCommerce times, consumers preferred physical stores that provided better service.

Solving customer concerns during the time of shopping and wishing customers on holidays, birthdays, etc., have been part of the business world for a very long time.

The only reason this is new to eCommerce is that eCommerce lacked the operational capabilities of implementing all these, but that is no longer the case.

New experiences have created expectations for customers, which include:

Personalised experience

Consumers expect eCommerce companies to know their names and buying behaviours, and priorities. Customers expect companies to remember their wish lists and send them discounts on the products they have been planning to buy.

They also expect brands to send recommendations based on their prior buying history and notifications when brands add new products in their preferred categories, among other things.

Brands also need to remember important days for their customers and wish them on these days.

Consistent branding

Branding creates your image and perceived value in the subconscious mind of consumers. Some of the most significant factors responsible for building a premium image include:

• Maintaining the same product information across all touchpoints and sales platforms
• Rich product information
• Prominent and engaging social media presence

Technical factors for enhanced convenience

Numerous other technical factors play a crucial role in defining a premium and convenient shopping experience, including:

• Mobile-friendly experiences
• Interactive features on all platforms
• Different payment and delivery options
• Enhanced customer support options
• Advanced search filters

Importance of the product experience

Now let’s talk about the product experience.

No one can deny or argue about the importance of having a premium product experience as consumer experience will matter only if your product can solve a big problem in your customer’s life.

Repeat buyers are going to define the success of your business and getting a customer to buy from you again is only possible if your product surpasses the expectations your customers have from it.

Another critical point is that the pandemic has shifted consumer habits by building a habit of prioritising products that they need over the habit of buying without a plan. The price of your products must be viable and affordable for your target audience to even consider the factors associated with a premium customer experience.

Who wins the game?

Product experience and customer experience both have a unique role to play and are equally important.

You cannot afford to ignore any one of these if you are looking to grow your eCommerce business to the next level.

Your product experience (on all the platforms and touchpoints) will prompt buyers to analyse your customer experience and eventually become repeat buyers if every one of your touchpoints is optimised.

Wondering how can you achieve a consistent and premium brand image online?

There are a lot of steps involved in optimising your online presence and efficiently managing all your touchpoints.

Everything is possible only if you have a robust technology backing your eCommerce operations, including a

• PIM for consistent product management across all platforms
• OMS to manage orders
• CRM to manage customer relations and support, and
• an eCommerce platform that can be customised to the growing needs of your business

A Composable Commerce platform like BetterCommerce can help you achieve your goals as it gives you the freedom to customise every part of your eCommerce business and run your PIM, OMS, CRM, and other components separately rather than a traditional all-in-one solution.

Businesses heavily rely on IT services to maintain their overall internal and external operations, as we know; in today’s world, it is impossible to run a company without incorporating efficient IT strategies. However, with various IT strategies comes the IT budget that takes a massive chunk of the venture’s finances to support its infrastructure. This is where IT consulting becomes a necessity. To come up with information technology cost reduction strategies.

Let’s see some of the methods you can opt for to ensure your business’ IT is Cost-Effective.

1- IT Cost Allocation Models

For starters, you need to analyze the current IT expenditures of your company. Calculating the IT cost gives an overview of how much money is being spent and what steps you can take to cut down the costs. You can use metrics to organize all the numbers and keep everything in order.

You can then use all the data to create efficient IT budget, allocation models. The CIO (Chief Information Officer) works on the budget of the IT department by analyzing the information technology cost drivers.  The cost drivers could include,

• IT personnel
• Services
• Hardware
• Software
• Subscriptions

Also, the IT department should closely work with the finance department of the company. This cooperation can be highly beneficial for the overall enterprise as it can help develop effective Information technology cost management. 

Furthermore, information technology cost-benefit analysis helps decide how much money should be invested in what type of technology. This step can help the company to grow in the future and generate adequate profits. Such projects require a flexible budget but investing smartly after running thorough IT cost analysis can close all the possible cost leaking holes.

Real-Life Example:

if the accounts department is suggested by IT experts to shift from Oracle software to SAP software for enhancing productivity and accuracy of data, then heavy capital expenditures would incur

1. for installing software and paying the license fee
2. for training the existing employees to use the new technology

Now, IT cost-benefit analysis can show:

1. the cost spent on Oracle and the profits it generates from using it compared to the cost required to shift on SAP and the benefits of investing in SAP
2. the anticipated rise in profits
3. Cost-savings/cuttings per month
4. Impact on the employee work efficiency level

2- Reduce Employee Costs

IT employees are pretty expensive. In short, you spend a handsome amount of the budget on paying the personnel, also covering their other expenses like travel and health.  To control the personnel expenditures, it is better to hire fewer people that are competent enough to deal with the IT matters.

For example: If you don’t need an app that requires constant change in coding, don’t hire a full-time Android programmer. Instead, get your app made by a company and hire someone on an hourly basis to get little tweaks done every now and then.

3 – Only the Must-have Hardware

Hardware expenses usually include the money spent on the equipment, its installation, and maintenance. You can save a substantial amount of cash by,

a) Using remote employees

b) moving all the data to the cloud storage systems

 4- Review Subscriptions you don’t need

You need to look out for subscriptions you’re paying annually but not using anymore. When companies use external software and services, they often buy annual subscriptions; however, down the line, when those services are no longer required, you can easily forget to cancel the subscription fee, which makes you lose money.

For example, an HR manager pays the subscription fee to use the Quilgo app for setting a timer on an online test, but after some time, they switch to a better application, forgetting to cancel the premium fee for Quilgo. It will then become a hidden expense that calls for you to keep a check on subscription payments and cancel any you don’t use anymore. 

 5- Software Contracts and AI Tools

You can save some money on the software you use by negotiating pricing plans with your software vendor. Chances are you might get a discount or some other opportunity for cutting down the costs.

Moreover, you can use free software and AI tools online. Many websites offer free services and tools. For example, if you provide content creation and writing services, you can use applications like Canva for graphics and Grammarly for checking grammar plus the quality of your writing. Google Analytics is another good example of keeping track of your website traffic.

6- Track Invoices

Use customer relationship management (CRM) software to track your various invoices, customer data, sales, employee information, contracts, and client management. All in all, you can use particular CRM software to take care of more than one job. Salesforce work and Infusionsoft are good examples

7- Communication Apps

Use free applications like Zoom, Skype, or Google Hangouts to have meetings with remote employees. You can arrange a timely meeting with your consultants, advisors, or legal counselors related directly or indirectly to IT online without traveling to a specific location.

8- Avoid Shortcuts

Don’t forget that you get what you pay for –

From your personnel to hardware/software and service providers, check everything. Create virtual databases and use a metric system to keep track of your cost savings. Moreover, cut down only those costs that are unnecessary. Try to avoid looking for cheaper alternatives to everything.

 Final Thoughts

There are even more information technology cost savings ideas you can use to lower the expenses dedicated not only to the IT department itself.

Analyze your investment in Social media platforms and applications; you can find ways to reduce your IT costs there as well.