3. From Idea To Store Shelf

Hi, and welcome to Product Packaging and Profit, where we help product-based businesses turn packaging design into a competitive edge to attract customers, grow sales, and boost profits.

I'm Kelley Kempel, After 20 years of designing packaging for national retailers, I founded Hidden Path Creative, a graphic design studio that supports entrepreneurs with branding and packaging to get their products seen and sold. I'm sharing the secrets that launched big brands so your products can stand out.  Let's get started.

This episode of Product Packaging and Profit is sponsored by the Packaging Printer List.

If there is one question I've heard from almost every product entrepreneur I've talked to, it is, where can I get my packaging printed?

No, really, If we were on Family Feud, this would be the answer at the top of the board. The Packaging Printer list is a curated directory of over 45 packaging printers and suppliers across various product categories, packaging types, and locations.

I've handpicked all of the entries so you can be sure you're starting with a vetted shortlist. To grab your copy of the packaging printer list, head over to www.hiddenpathcreative.com/packagingprinterlist.

Welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me again here on Product Packaging and Profit. I am so excited to dump into another topic here, and today I want to chat with you all about this idea of how we get a product idea to the shelf.

And I think that that is such a, you know, it's such a, a great journey that you take with your product to go from that idea to seeing it in a store, that it really, it deserves a little time to take a deep dive.

If you have a product business or you're thinking about starting your own product business, I want you to take a minute and close your eyes.

Now, if you're in the car, please don't do this. But if you're listening somewhere where you're sitting down or you're at home, just take a minute, close your eyes and imagine your product.

Where is your product? Where do you want to see your product? Okay, Have you thought about it? My question is, was it in a store when you imagined your product?

Did you see it in a store, on a shelf, or on a table? Is that where you saw it?

I find it so interesting today with the rise of e-commerce, that when I meet with clients and potential clients, so many product businesses have that ultimate goal of seeing their products in a big box store.

And I'm talking about those stores that we all shop at all the time Target, Ultas, Sephoras, and even a store like Lowe's, I get customers that want to see their products in Costco.

And you know, you're picking out a store that you want to see your product in based on how your product aligns with the shoppers of that store. 

You know, the types of products that are already there because you want to see your own product in the company of these other products and brands that you admire.

It's only natural that you would want to see your product in the store. We've spent so much time shopping in stores over the years that it's just that natural.

It's that natural idea. It's, you know, a natural fit and it's just, it's not surprising at all. You know, every day I'm getting email newsletters from things like Retail Dive and others, and all of the big direct-to-consumer players are eventually moving into stores to be able to reach more customers.

Caraway, the Cookware brand, they just in to deal with Target, where they're gonna be testing, Yes, they're a big brand, but they're still testing with Target in about 300 stores.

Now, Target has 2000 stores across the country, but to see if the brand, the product, the price point, and the presentation resonates with the target customer, they're gonna test that product first.

What does that mean? Does it mean that direct-to-consumer is dead? There was an article in Forbes last week that said just that, that financial experts are saying that these direct-to-consumer brands, that direct-to-consumer model, really not the brands, but the direct-to-consumer model, that it's dying, that it's going away.

I don't know, don't believe everything you read. I think sometimes headline headlines like that are just about grabbing our attention. But retail and e-commerce are ever-changing. The market changes a lot from day to day, week to week. And when new ideas come out in the retail space, in the product space, a lot of times bigger brands, bigger stores, we'll jump on those trends right away.

The first couple, of direct-to-consumer brands that came out, they put a lot of money behind getting in front of a lot of eyeballs on social media. It happened very fast. there was a lot of traction there, there was a lot of buzz because it was new.

Many more brands entered that space. And e-commerce is, e-commerce is gonna continue to be a big part of our shopping lives. 

There's a convenience to shopping online. We can just from the click of a button, from the screen of our phones, which we have in our hands all of the time, we can search for products that we need and want and buy them right away.

But at the same time, we also like to try and experience things. And so having a place where customers can see and touch and feel and experience your product before they spend the money on it, I don't think that that's ever gonna go away.

It may change a lot, it may change in ways that we don't yet know how it's gonna change, but we're gonna continue to have stores. And another reason why I think that so many product brands want to see their products in stores or benefit from having their products in stores is we all shop, right?

There is a never-ending line of customers that go into stores and they may go into a particular store for a particular item, but once they're in there, they can discover things that they haven't seen before.

There is discoverability in store that happens that doesn't happen the same way in e-commerce. So think about it, you've run into Target to pick up your groceries for the week or pick up something else on your shopping list that is a necessity, something you need, but you have to walk into the store and walk to that aisle, walk to that area, walk to that department, and as you're walking, you are passing other things.

Target has the ability to put other products in your path before you get to the thing that you need. It's no accident that the groceries are at the back of every Target.

As a brand, if you get your product into a Target, you are able to expose your product and your brand to more customers than if you were just on your own retail website or if you were just on Amazon, which is super interesting, right?

That's why I get so excited about getting my clients' products in stores. And it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to be a big box store.

In fact, you're probably gonna start with getting your products into local shops and boutiques and then getting into larger regional chains, a shop that maybe has a few locations or multiple locations, and you are going to build up to that big goal of getting into a bigger store.

All right, so let's talk about what that looks like. So getting from that vision, getting from this big goal of what store you wanna be in you know, getting from this idea to actually making it a reality.

What kind of steps does this take? Well, first and foremost, you need to develop a great product. I know so many of you have already developed great products, but at the end of the day, your product needs to be special, and unique and deliver on the promises that we're selling.

That's just table stakes. But once you've developed your product, once you've figured out, you know how it's made, how it's built, what it's doing for others, this is where we sit down and we look at how do we position your product.

In the last episode,  I talked about how getting really clear on what your product is and what it does is super important.

And this is your positioning. So this is where, yes, your product might be able to do three things, but what is the one thing that your customer wants that they're gonna buy your product for?

This is the position, this is your unique point of view. This is the thing on that we base all of your messaging and design on.

This is the thing that's gonna make you different from your competitors. It can be the way your product is made, can be the way your product is built.

It can be the thing that your product does for your customers. It can be the way that your product enhances somebody's life.

It can be a personality thing or can be a style, but you wanna have a really clear positioning. And once we have that positioning, we are going to take that positioning and turn it into a visual representation through your packaging.

To get started on your packaging, we'll pick out a container. So what is your product going in? Is your product going in a two-bottle, a box, or a bag?

Is it in a backer card or a wrap? You wanna pick this out before you actually start doing any graphics.

You can start to do some messaging ahead of this, but because you'll wanna plan the order and hierarchy of the messaging around and throughout the packaging, it can be helpful to at least have an idea of a general type of container.

You'll design the packaging, you'll get both the product and the packaging produced. And I highly recommend that you are producing your product and your packaging at the same time.

Here's why, Because both things work together, and depending on how you are manufacturing, building, and making your product, the easiest and most efficient way to package a product is to package it as it's being made.

If you're working with a manufacturer or a factory, they'll actually want to package your product as if it's coming off of the production line.

If you are making the product, you will want to package it as soon as it's done being made. And you might be doing things in batches, but I would say it's a little easier to store product if it's packaged, that packaging is then helping to protect the product.

You've got your product, you've got it packaged. This is where when you're wholesaling and whether it's your wholesaling to boutiques through Faire or Juniper Market, or you are wholesaling to regional chains or national chains, you need to think about how you can produce that product and scale.

You're gonna have to, you're gonna produce the product in scale, you're gonna produce the packaging and scale. And this is important because as you're starting to get into stores and you have orders, you wanna make sure you can deliver on them.

The scale of producing for even a few boutiques versus producing for a market that you're a local market that you're selling your product at, it's gonna be a multiplier.

You're gonna continue to multiply the quantity. So you do wanna think ahead about how you can produce in scale. Now, something that I think is super beneficial when you're looking to get your product into stores, boutiques, and retailers is creating visibility and buzz.

Because as you get to bigger stores, it's helpful to be driving customer traffic into those stores. Some chains will like to see that your product is actually going to bring them new customers into the store so it's a win-win proposition where you are bringing customers and they're bringing customers.

What does it mean to create visibility and buzz? You can do that by building your social media following. You can do that through PR and getting mentions on websites and in magazines.

Product roundups are really great. So submitting to gift guides, and submitting to reporter calls for product features is also really great.

You can pitch your, you can pitch your products yourself or you can have somebody help you with that, but I highly recommend starting to build that audience and that following for your product.

This can also be about working with influencers and partnering there, but essentially the more eyeballs you have on your product as you're starting to move to stores, the better.

And think about it just earlier we were talking about how customers love to see and touch and experience things. when you move into stores, you may have some customers that were or potential customers that were on the bubble, people that were, that are in your audience, that are following your social media, following you on Instagram and Facebook, and they're interested in your products, but they're not quite ready to pull the trigger because they want to see the quality or they're just, they're just not sure yet.

A great example of this is Olive in June. So they're a direct-to-consumer nail polish brand. They've got an amazing way that they've set up the product line in that it's not just nail polish, it's a system and they really walk customers through how to do a salon-quality manicure at home.

Now, as you can expect, what I've just described sounds like a premium product, and it is, it's priced higher than, you know, your drugstore nail polish.

It is, it's an investment to buy their starter kit. And they do recommend that starter kit for anyone, you know, using, their nail polish, they entered Target.

Now people who were thinking about the product and who were going, is that nail polish worth $9 a bottle?

They can go into Target, they can purchase a couple of pieces of the line of the system. They don't have to pay the shipping fee.

They can see what it looks like. They can touch and feel it, they can experience and test it. And that has been huge for their brand in terms of expanding their reach.

It was such a smart move. And what's super interesting is there are people that go into the store, there are people that still comment on their social posts that ask, Is this available at Target?

Because I want to be able to go see it in person. So definitely, you know, definitely having a following and a buzz where you can have customers, people in your orbit that you can direct towards those in-store experiences if they want to try out your product is really beneficial.

And then, okay, so we've, so we just spent a lot of time on creating visibility and buzz in terms of getting your product from idea to shelf.

The other thing is to pitch it. Reach out to those stores that you want to be a part of and share your product with them.

Start a conversation now. I'm gonna say work your way up cause it gets, it would be, it's, you know, I think we, we all have that dream of going really big, but test your product in those boutiques and smaller stores before you jump to the scale of a Target.

Sephora and Ulta, you will get there, I promise you. And it'll be better, it'll be a better experience if you take the steps to build up to that bigger scale. But pitch, get a pitch together, have a deck, have a product catalog, have a line sheet, have a short presentation, whether it be digital, you can even do a great direct mail.

People love getting physical things. We send so little physical mail anymore that it really is a great surprise to get it to express really clearly and succinctly why your product is amazing, why customers will love it, and why it fits into this particular store.

I think it's just so important to go after what you want and not just wait for somebody to show up. 

Start building that list of boutiques, shops, and stores that you would love to see your product in and start reaching out because it's going to take building a relationship with the buyer of the store, the boutique, and the chain to get them to send that purchase order.

And once they send that purchase order, you've gotta make and deliver their product. And that's how you get your product from an idea to a shelf. 

Thank you so much for listening to Product, Packaging, and Profit, a podcast for product entrepreneurs looking to level up with packaging.

We hope you'll join us next time to hear more about how packaging can help propel profitable product businesses. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review us wherever you're listening.

And be sure to come back in two weeks for our next episode. Until then, this is Kelly Kempel of Hidden Path Creative.