Skincare is a major winner when it comes to online sales. Not only are skincare brands increasingly seeing sales online (a report by Nielsen found that in 2017, 1 in 3 dollars spent on beauty products is spent online), but the male skincare industry is also one of the fastest growing industries online.
The main takeaway - the online skincare industry is growing. And when you have online product sales, you have another factor that becomes a mandatory component - product packaging.
In our experience creating packaging solutions, packaging costs should ideally make up between 6-8% of the entire order cost. The question is - how to make that happen for skincare products.
When it comes to skincare, packaging makes all the difference. As often the products are at a higher price range as well as fragile (think glass serum bottles and perfumes). Extra attention has to be paid to packaging to ensure that:
- The products are safe - they'll arrive in one piece
- The product unboxing experience is impressive - that the packaging matches the brand values.
We'll go into the details of what to keep in mind when creating your skincare product packaging, to optimize visual impact, safety, as well as shipping costs.
Optimal Sizing for Skincare Packaging
The general rule of thumb when packaging skincare products is to keep it small and snug.
Why?
There are several reasons small and snug packaging is best for skincare products: When keeping the products snug and in place, there's less room for them to knock around and collide with other items in the box, or the box itself upon impact. More snug packaging = less weight which = smaller expenses (see the next section on calculating expenses)
With 95% of ecommerce shoppers saying that shipping impacts their shopping decisions, it is definitely worth considering how you can optimize your shipping expenses.
When it comes to product shipping, the costs are made up of three factors:
- The size of the box
- The distance being traveled
- The weight of the product
With products that are set in their dimensions (such as skincare products) and sold online, there's only one factor that you can influence. The size of the box. Keep it snug to both keep your products safe as well as to keep shipping costs to a minimum.
Dress The Inside of Your Package
To make sure that your skincare products stay safe while in transit, and to heighten the unboxing experience, make sure to consider the kinds of inserts you'll use in your packaging.
You can choose to use packaging inserts that keep your product in place.
The benefit here is that you'll be able to control how the customer discovers the products, which is right side up, which they see first, attach messaging to specific products in the box, etc.
You can also use filler, which can be in the form of crinkle paper, styrofoam peanuts, or more. With filler, you're able to reduce costs while also providing a soft cushion for products in the box.
Pro tip: if you want the cushy-ness of styrofoam peanuts but are aware of its negative impact on the environment, consider biodegradable cornstarch-based peanuts as an environmentally-friendly alternative.
Calculate and Optimize Shipping Expenses
As skincare products tend to be on the heavier side - with serums, creams, and cleansers, the typically suggested pricing route to go with is cubic pricing (only available to high-volume sellers shipping more than 50,000 units per year).
Cubic pricing yields the best prices for small but heavy products. The catch is - the package has to weigh less than 20 pounds and has to be no more than 0.5 cubic feet in volume.
Taking USPS as the example. This is the formula to discover the cubic feet of your package:
Length x Width x Height / 1728 = Cubic Feet
For example:
Let's say you have a small box containing a serum, where the sizing is 3” x 3” x 2”. Divide that by 1728 and you're left with .006 cubic feet.
That leaves the box in the 0.1 category, and therefore we see that shipping would range between $6.35-$9.72. Assuming the box weighs 1lb, this can provide approximately 50% savings when compared to regular shipping pricing.
Pro-tip: Be careful with box size - just a few ounces more can increase the shipping rates by dollars per box, so keeping boxes small will pay off.
Conclusion
The common denominator when considering packaging for skincare products is that the best results - both from a safety and a monetary perspective - are attained when the product packaging keeps the skincare products snug and in place.
Smaller outer packaging reduces shipping costs and the possibility of the products knocking around the box, while filler keeps the insides stable, beautiful, and provides the “wow” element when unboxing.
At Arka we offer high-quality custom cosmetic boxes that ensure safety and a memorable unboxing experience! If in doubt, contact us, we'd be happy to help you find the best packaging solutions for your skincare products.
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