In the world of high-end cosmetics and perfumes, the shopping experience online should be similar to that in store. “An increasing number of our customers also sell online now, and they want to be able to adapt online selling packaging to their own image. Demand is growing stronger and stronger, so we should think about it properly,” explains Stéphanie Havard, Project Manager at Procos, an expert in luxury packaging. “They have also found out that, the more upgraded the packaging, the less complaints they receive. This helps really qualify the products sold, better promote the brand, and create a real surprise, a real added value,” she adds.

Wow effect and upcycling

Expectations should be met as soon as the product is shipped, according to DS Smith, a packaging specialist that has developed shipping packs for cosmetics brands perfectly adapted to online shopping requirements. “We design personalized solutions for a booming market,” explains Béatrice Charrier, Marketing Director at DS Smith Consumer France.

Procos - Make-up box

Shipping packaging should meet several requirements: preserve its main role of protecting the product against degradation and theft, not make it the object of people’s desire on the outside, and promote the brand’s image with a wow effect inside. The whole should be designed bearing in mind cost, weights, and environmental impact constraints. “We need to work on the discovery effect, while maintaining the addressee’s anonymity,” Béatrice Charrier highlights.

We are asked to adapt the size to the item and its weight, work on the cardboard grammage, but above all, make a sophisticated decoration, since the most important is to preserve the brand’s codes,” Stéphanie Havard confirms.

With the concept of upcycling, we can go even farther, offering a second life to the packaging. This idea was recently developed and implemented for a famous coffee capsule supplier, as DS Smith created a shipping packaging in the form of a box fitted with drawers, for it to serve other uses.

To help their customers think this through, Procos came to the last Pack & Gift show to showcase different concepts of boxes adapted to perfume or makeup products sold online.

The first perfume shipping box developed with a sophisticated decoration directly opens on the case, which is placed in the middle of fresh flowers. “The idea is to recreate the same bond as what is experienced in-store, with a floral atmosphere and an olfactory dimension,” Stéphanie Havard explains.

The second box, a real makeup kit, looks like an object to be kept, with mini-drawers and a mirror. “With this idea, we can also stimulate additional selling, for example by imagining that the mirror is a personalized LCD screen programmed to make the customer discover products complementary to those they have just bought,” Stéphanie Havard adds.

Guaranteeing consumers the closeness they enjoy during their shopping experience in-store, with less weight and for a cheaper cost, while satisfying industrial constraints: the role of packaging in the boom of e-commerce has yet to be proven.