One third of e-commerce shoppers return health and beauty products because of the packaging

Esko Identifies Shopper E-Commerce and In-Store Preferences in New Health and Beauty Packaging Study

Gent, Belgium – October 25, 2018 – Esko, a global provider of software and hardware for packaging management and collaboration, design, workflow automation, and production, released a new study, “Packaging and the Digital Shopper: Meeting Expectations in Health & Beauty,” along with sister companies Pantone, X-Rite and AVT. This new study reveals what 3,000 shoppers in North America, Western Europe, and Asia want from health, beauty and personal care packaging, and follows the study “Packaging and the Digital Shopper: Meeting Expectations in Food & Beverage” that was released in June 2018.

Qualitative and quantitative data from this new study may be valuable to senior brand leaders in many departments, such as marketing, design, packaging and information technology, in order to gain insights on shoppers’ preferences and expectations regarding packaging in digital and physical shopping experiences within health, beauty and personal care categories. With this knowledge, brand leaders can better simplify and connect their packaging functions, become more agile, and utilize packaging as a way to innovate their products to drive growth. These findings are also useful for creative agencies and packaging converters as they help brand leaders meet and exceed the product and packaging expectations of today’s digital shoppers.

Some statistics from the study highlighted

• Sixty-three percent of shoppers foresee purchasing more health, beauty, and personal care products online in the next 18 months
• Fourteen percent of online shoppers returned health and beauty products because of miscommunications in online appearance versus what was delivered to their home
• Twenty-eight percent of shoppers agreed that they had purchased a new product because they enjoyed the packaging in the prior three months
• Sixty-three percent of shoppers say they are highly likely to purchase health and beauty products that are personalized for their skin/body type

Future online shopping expectations

With sixty-three percent of shoppers stating that they are likely to purchase health and beauty products that are personalized for their skin/body type, brand leaders need to start considering how to rapidly personalize functional product attributes and improve that experience for shoppers, including the product instructions. Personalization to the shopper will be less about applying his or her name on the product, and more about product customization.

“The data and insights on shopper’s packaging preferences, specifically within personalization, explain why it has become imperative to utilize digital packaging technology tools to increase speed to market and improve overall packaging and product quality,” says John Elworthy, Senior Director of Global Brand Sales.

Esko’s President, Udo Panenka, agrees, “Our study highlights the importance of brand consistency. With shoppers returning products because they don’t match what they’ve seen online, leaders at health, beauty and personal care companies should work to connect their packaging value chain functions in order to present unified or custom product imagery, content, brand graphics and proprietary colors at the speed required by digital shoppers.”

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