I don’t like packaging. I particularly don’t like clamshell packaging; smooth clear plastic boxes designed to be used once and thrown away. Back in the day when 90% of our customers were leather fetish stores, none of them wanted packaging, so it wasn’t an issue. Since then, we’ve expanded our customer base into more mainstream sex shops, and storeowners won’t buy gear if it’s not packaged to the max, so reluctantly, we do use it.
The general consensus among storeowners is that it’s the packaging that sells the product, so inferior products can outsell better ones if they’re more snappily packaged. When I think of the extent to which we have had our brains scrambled and served back to us for breakfast by marketing departments, I invariably find myself slowly banging my head against the wall and repeating “make it stop make it stop”
Part of it is that packaging makes products slightly less informally removable from stores. Part is that really nice packaging does look good, though for my money there’s not so much of that in this industry. And part of it is undeniably the fact that the only way some products are ever going to sell is if they’re hidden in a cardboard box with a picture of something else on the outside!
I really like the system they have in Germany, where any retailer who sells packaged goods has to be prepared to recycle the packaging. So customers will unwrap and de-box their purchases at the store, and drop the debris in the recycling bins provided.
Eden Fantasys, to their undying credit, have indicated that they are happy to receive product in little plastic baggies, which you can then use as sandwich bags, or doggie litter bags. That works here because there’s so much peer review and comparison that you just can’t do with regular old stores. But what do you think? How important is packaging? Does it sell the product? Are we, as well as not buying the steak, only buying an mp3 of the sizzle?
The general consensus among storeowners is that it’s the packaging that sells the product, so inferior products can outsell better ones if they’re more snappily packaged. When I think of the extent to which we have had our brains scrambled and served back to us for breakfast by marketing departments, I invariably find myself slowly banging my head against the wall and repeating “make it stop make it stop”
Part of it is that packaging makes products slightly less informally removable from stores. Part is that really nice packaging does look good, though for my money there’s not so much of that in this industry. And part of it is undeniably the fact that the only way some products are ever going to sell is if they’re hidden in a cardboard box with a picture of something else on the outside!
I really like the system they have in Germany, where any retailer who sells packaged goods has to be prepared to recycle the packaging. So customers will unwrap and de-box their purchases at the store, and drop the debris in the recycling bins provided.
Eden Fantasys, to their undying credit, have indicated that they are happy to receive product in little plastic baggies, which you can then use as sandwich bags, or doggie litter bags. That works here because there’s so much peer review and comparison that you just can’t do with regular old stores. But what do you think? How important is packaging? Does it sell the product? Are we, as well as not buying the steak, only buying an mp3 of the sizzle?
