#430 – Packaging That Sells: How to Triple Your Product Price with Strategic Design

#430 - Packaging That Sells: How to Triple Your Product Price with Strategic Design Kevin King: What's up everybody? This is episode 430 of the AM-PM Podcast. This week we're talking about branding and packaging. That's right. How do you actually get people to pay more money and how do you get creative with your packaging? I've got a Kitty Lai this week and we talk about everything to do with packaging and a lot of things that you probably aren't thinking about that you could be doing to really make your product stand apart and to really help it to even potentially go viral just based on the packaging and even maybe even charge double or triple the price. Enjoy this episode with Kitty. Unknown Speaker: Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast. Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast, where we explore opportunities in e-commerce. We dream big and we discover what's working right now. Plus, this is the podcast where money never sleeps. Working around the clock in the AM and the PM. Are you ready for today's episode? I said, are you ready? Speaker 2: Let's do this. Unknown Speaker: Here's your host, Kevin King. Speaker 2: Hello, everybody. Kevin King: Happy New Year to everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the NPM Podcast. Today, I have the lovely Kitty Lye. How are you doing, Kitty? Speaker 2: Hi, I'm really well, Kevin, and thank you so much for having me on the show. Kevin King: You're welcome. I had to do something to save you from that cold British winter, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really cold here. But it's not as cold, it's not snowing, so I'm still expecting snow, but we've had storms last weekend, so it has been wet, windy and typical English weather. Kevin King: Typical English weather. I mean, I love London. I mean, London's a cool – you're in London proper or you're in the outskirts of London? Speaker 2: I was in London for 25 years and I've moved back to my hometown on the coast, on the south coast. Kevin King: Oh, on the south coast, okay. Down like by Essex or that area? Speaker 2: No, down Brighton, Worthing, West Sussex way. So, I live in a little town called Chichester. It's lovely. It's nice. My family here, my mom and dad, it's where I went to school and stuff, but I'm back home now after 25 years. Kevin King: Awesome. Awesome. I always love visiting over there. I've been to London, that area, and throughout the whole area many, many times. It's great. Cool, I think, what do we mean? I think, was it on the cruise? Seller cruise or something like that? Speaker 2: So, we can rewind back. Kevin King: Oh no, we went actually before that too, somewhere. It was in London. Speaker 2: It was in London at the Amazon head office. You did a talk and you actually did mastermind there. So, I attended it and this was 2017, I believe. 2018, I believe. Kevin King: I remember doing that event. It was like, One day was just a general event and then we did like two or three days after that where people pay that trip. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean things have changed since then anyway. So I was an Amazon seller back then. So I was selling products in US and UK. Didn't do particularly well. I'm a designer and that's what I do. I can't deal with back end and stuff. But you know, I went there to learn a lot of tips and I did and it's amazing. And I still love the sort of the journey and hearing the stories from Amazon sellers as well. But my background is in design and branding and that's where I really want to stay. Kevin King: That's awesome. Is that what you went to school for or is that just something that you fell into and have found that you're good at? Speaker 2: If we're going back then, 15, as soon as I got my national insurance card in the UK, we get this card so we can actually work at 15 and I worked at this packaging factory. So you've got the conveyor belts and I was doing as a packing like makeup for Estee Lauder, Clinique and doing perfumes for Aramis. So I was, I'm the one putting the brushes in the makeups and screwing lids on the creams and stuff, you know, so it's a lovely brand, you know, and work there in summers, you know, holidays and stuff. So it was literally a summer job and part-time job. And that's where I really fell in love with packaging. So I could see the journey and the process from handling product and then it going on to the shop floor and that was amazing. And then I studied art and design and went to university to study visual communication. I specialize in graphic design, so I've done that ever since. My first job was working in London down Mill Street, this really small little quirky graphic agency, but they made me wear suits to work. It was bizarre. It's like, well, we're creatives. Why do I have to wear a suit? Back then, we had to cut things up and make mock-ups. I'm wearing this clunky little suit in the late 1990s, so it's like, oh. Yeah, I loved it. Kevin King: You did end up working for some big brands too, doing branding stuff, right? I did, yeah. Did you work for a brand or did you work for an agency that did stuff for the brand? Speaker 2: I worked in-house as an in-house designer, so I literally worked my way up. My second job actually was working for a company called Ted Baker. And they were still quite small back then, still established for 10 years. But obviously, they grew big, obviously, in America. I was part of that, to open stores around America, in Asia, in Australia, in Europe, and obviously, the expansion in the UK as well. So I worked as a graphic designer, working on all the marketing materials, the point of sale in store, the packaging, the marketing flyers, going on photo shoots, doing the brochures, and everything that needed to go in store. And to the customer, I was designing lovely Christmas bags and things. I was there for 10 years. I worked my way up to head of graphics. I was managing a team of eight designers by the time I left Ted Baker. That was in 2008 when I left. There was a lot of transition from when I studied in university. I still learned to design on overlays. You had to hang them up. Kevin King: I remember the little plastic. Speaker 2: Composites and stuff. Kevin King: I went back to the 80s and 90s too when you had to actually output to a film, you know, like a little piece of plastic film. Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Kevin King: Four different colors and four different pieces of film and everything. Speaker 2: That's it. And the day when you had floppy disks, like 1.2 megabytes on a floppy disk working as a, you know, and it was just crazy. And then, you know, I've seen a progression from internet design because when I studied at uni, internet had literally just started. I mean, America, you're way ahead of us anyway. But for us in the late 1990s, everyone was starting to get website designs and, you know, and everyone was getting a lot of things done. That wasn't really my space. I was more in packaging and, you know, that's that arena. I love flat graphics. I love print graphics. Being digital was not really my thing. And it was sort of the growth of that and just seeing a transition throughout the stages of Having to learn and keep up over the years, I mean, I've been doing this for over 20 years plus, and it's just keeping up with the trends and all the things that are coming, especially when you see in the Amazon world, everything from 10 years, I mean, you've been doing it much longer as well. Seeing the transition from, you know, the whole grandfather back in the day when you started on Amazon, what has changed? I mean, how has it grown and exploded? Kevin King: It's completely changed. And packaging is something that I think a lot of people in this space totally ignore. I mean, they're always looking for the cheap. They're always looking for how can I get this down. And packaging can encompass a lot of things. Packaging can encompass how well the product's protected, how well the product, what size, how many you can fit in the computer, what it looks like on a shelf. A lot of people, when it comes to e-commerce, they're like, what do I care about the packaging? Nobody's picking it up off the shelf and turning it over and flipping it. But I would say the complete opposite. The packaging actually absolutely matters. There's a few cases where it's maybe a commodity product or something basic. You don't need that. But for a lot of things, people eat with their eyes first. A good packaging confirms what you just bought. So if I just spent $50 for something on Amazon and it comes in one of these cheap cardboard boxes, that kind of stinks. You can tell it's just a little flimsy that came out of China. It's not even like You know, it's not even like three wall, two wall, one wall. It's like half a wall or whatever, you know, versus something that comes in a nice container that has a nice presentation. You know, you think of Apple or something with the packaging. It's simplistic, but it's elegant and it makes you feel like I just spent a thousand bucks for a phone. Okay, this is justified because this package feels like it's a thousand dollars. And I think that's a thing a lot of people make a mistake on when it comes to e-commerce. Plus, packaging can be used now in your images to actually help you delineate something. So, why do you think so many people, I mean, you sold on Amazon and now you've transitioned to doing more of the packaging and design stuff, but why do you think so many people skimp on this? Is it because they don't want to spend the money? Is it because they don't understand it? Is it because, why? I never get the psychology of it. Speaker 2: Well, I think, firstly, a lot of Amazon sellers aren't designers or they're not natural business owners or brand owners. And you think, oh, actually, can I save? And I think when people do start off, it is like, where can I save on costs? And it generally does come down to the design and the packaging. Now, they think, OK, I've got the logo. I've got some of the brand ready. But the packaging, oh, I'll just use what the suppliers have used and just use their templates and not think of anything more creative other than that and the materials. But I think, yeah, it's down to budget. More Amazon sellers are getting a bit more savvy now, and they're looking at their competition, and I think that's really important to see. It's the experience as well that the brand owners forget. When you do get something through the post, you open that box and you think, oh, like you say, it's flimsy, it's smelly, and it's single-walled kind of packaging. You have to remember, as a brand owner, what is your customer getting? So it's that experience, and that is part of building a brand, is experience, the joy, and the custom service that comes with it, and actually enjoying using the product itself. I love packaging, and I always shop with my eyes, basically. I shop on Amazon a lot, so I do look at other brands. And I do look at price as well. So it's like, is that worth it? But at the end of the day, when it comes through the post, and I do look at the packaging thinking, oh, I do get quite a bit of joy from this. They've really thought about the materials they've used, the print they use, and the layout looks great. And I think that's a lot of things people do miss, the trick. And that's why some sellers are selling better than others as well, because they're not thinking about the end result, what the customer is getting. Kevin King: Good examples of packaging is when I go to the grocery store and I go into one of these specialty stores and they got, you know, a whole wall of olive oils or you go into a liquor store here in the States and you got a whole wall of tequilas and vodkas and you're looking at them and it's packaging is what makes, I mean, there are brand names where people know I want Tito's or something vodka or I want a certain type of olive oil. But a lot of times the packaging, you're looking at it and it's the packaging that actually catches your eye or that makes something feel like this olive oil should be $29.99 a bottle. Notice this other one's $9.99. It's probably the same damn thing inside or pretty close to it. But because this bottle is in the shape of a sexy girl or an olive or whatever, a tree or something, you're like, that's pretty cool. That would look cool on my kitchen counter. It's a conversation piece or whatever. I'll pay the extra money for it. And I think that's where a lot of e-commerce sellers think that, well, I can do the package. I can do a simple one. One wall box for 25 cents from my supplier, but if I want to do a custom packaging and make it look like a kind of like an apple I'm a founder of iPad or something that's gonna cost me $3. Shoot, that's a lot of money to be spending, but the justification and the increase in price is where a lot of people, I think, miss the boat. My buddy Norm, one of his clients sells knives, and they were selling this knife, this kitchen knife for like, I forget the exact price, but let's call it $30, and it was in a pretty basic packaging. He went to them and said, hey, let's up this packaging and put it in this Japanese-style Ginzu box and put Japanese letters on there and do all this kind of cool stuff. And when they open it, there's like a piece of foil you got to peel back and all this kind of stuff. And the packaging costs like $3 or $4 to do that, which is dramatically more than what they were paying. But they went from $30 to $129. Amazing. Exact same product. And they gave the product a new name. And I think they, they did something to the knife, spent another dollar and like did some texture or something on the knife to say it's, I forget what it's called. It's not rusted, but some sort of, you know, it's, I don't know, teethed or tethered or something. They justified a much higher price. And that's where I think a lot of people are missing the boat when it comes to the psychology I'm the CEO of Packaging. Speaker 2: I said it's perception, isn't it? So it's creating that perception and working on customers' emotions because you think, oh, that looks so different. And it might be $2 more, but it's like, I'll spend that. I'm getting less probably in the bottle, but I will just buy that because I want it. And I've done that myself, you know, I think I'm just getting a bottle of Prosecco. But, oh, this is really nicely edged like bottle, you know, and I keep it on my shelf. I won't throw it away. And any other bottle of Prosecco is in the bin. But there's certain things I will keep hold of and spend a little bit more because I think, oh, it makes me feel good. I really like it. You know, it's worth keeping, but that's the thing. It is working on the psychology of the customer. And if you're spending that little bit more just to make your product unique, it's worth every penny because, you know, and then you can, like you say, you can up the price of the product that you're selling as well. And it just feels more premium, luxury, and your customer wouldn't probably know it's the same product that you were selling before. Maybe just a tweak from your competitors. It makes a huge difference to packaging, definitely. Kevin King: I think a lot of e-commerce sellers might argue back to us and say, well, that's all great, Kevin, but my customers aren't willing to pay more money. If I spend more money on the package, then you're saying I can charge more. That's cool. I wish I could do that, but my competition won't allow me to do that. What would your answer be to those people? Speaker 2: Are they their own customer? I mean, are they selling to themselves? They might not, but I would say do some market research as well and see what customers are actually paying extra. They might be surprised. They probably would. And I guess it's also down to the materials you're using as well in the packaging. So you could probably source something cheap, fairly cheaper with your suppliers, but still make it look premium as well. So if you're trying to save a buck here or there, you could probably do that. But I would say definitely have the customer in mind, the target audience of who you're selling to, because there is a market for it. And if you're just thinking about the bottom line, then you've got to think about the investment in your brand and are you growing it and how can you grow your customer base and the brand with better packaging? Because I think all these good brands that we see out there, the successful ones, they've actually invested a lot of money into building their brand and making it appealable to their audience. And I think that emotion that you create just by opening a box, just having that extra layer to peel off, I think it makes the world of difference. And I think that's where Amazon sellers do sort of think differently. Not all. I think it's being educated that actually packaging is very important. It's the first thing they receive. That's the first thing they get in their hands. You want loyal customers. You want repeat customers. And you want them to be shouting out to their friends, look what I just got. This does that. Your friend might say, well, what's so different about this and that? There might be a particular feature that, I don't know, that's how brands grow. That's how word of mouth goes. That's what you want with your packaging, with your branding. Like you've said, with Apple, I keep all my boxes. I keep every single packaging box because I love it. It's just too good to throw. I use it. I upcycle it and use it for other things. I put pens and post-its and pins and things in it. You know, it's too good to throw so and in this world as well where we're talking about sustainability, being eco-friendly and reusable things as well. I think a lot of brand owners are starting to think about their packaging. Think about how can I reuse it or how can I recycle it? What can I use the box for now? And I've had a client recently as well. I designed a box for him and they said they want it as a keepsake box. But you know, their product is quite a day-to-day kitchen kind of product. I design the box so they can keep it. So there's not too much fluff or anything on there. It's on a sleeve that goes on the box. But the box is beautifully designed and it's made to be kept because it's too good to throw. And so, you know, it's thinking it out. Kevin King: I mean, like you said, it's a kitchen item that normally they'd throw the box out, but now they're going to keep it. And it probably has their logo or has some sort of branding or something on it. Speaker 2: It's a foiled block metallic logo. Kevin King: And they're going to put pens in it or do whatever they're going to do. And it's going to be a constant reminder of the brand. And that's what a lot, there's a lot of people that do that. I mean, my mom keeps freaking every, I'm not even talking about nice packaging. One of those plastic containers that butter comes in, she keeps the damn thing because there might be some art project or something down the road. If it's a tin foil that a pie comes in, she keeps it. But there's a lot of people that keep good packaging to reuse it or to store things in, but that just extends the brand. What about also in packaging? A lot of people think, well, packaging, that's just the box, but it goes beyond that. It's a sensory thing. So with packaging, you can actually do scents. If you're selling, I don't know, lingerie or something, when someone opens up the box of lingerie, you can have a nice package, a nice box with a bow and all the little papers and all that stuff, but if they open it and there's a certain smell, the smell of love or lavender or whatever the smell may be, or there's touch. One of the things that I did with packaging One of my products is I used to sell bully sticks. I've told this story a few times. And I actually use touch in the packaging. I mean, I did a cigar box and the whole nine yards, a custom box, but on the label itself, I found rather than just printing a basic label that sealed the box, it had texture to it. So like, you know, almost like Braille kind of feeling little bumps because all those little things matter. And if you really get into packaging and get into the design, There's a lot of cool stuff you can really do. Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely sensory packaging is a thing. It's the first thing you see. It's the smell. It's the touch as well. And with the smell thing, you can get print. You can print smells onto packaging now. So I met this company that actually injects the scent of whatever you want into the print. So it will be like a laminate or the print color, and it will just go onto the packaging itself. So you could have something that smells lovely. But yeah, absolutely. I think definitely using the eyes. The eyes are the main—we have more than We've got the five senses. We've got the general senses, but you've got the other ones, the emotional sense, and all the other things like, you know, the sound, like the fizz, like you open a Shreps bottle, and it goes, tss. It's got a particular, I mean, you have Shreps in the US, don't you? Yeah, it was a trademark with the tss, the way it does that, and that's like, oh, that's, you know, that's another sense, you know, in terms of the packaging, because they designed it to make that pop sound. And there's certain things, you know, that goes beyond just the box, so it is the sensory side of things as well. That you open, like, I don't know, there's certain particular packagings that have the, I guess, the Apple box. You go, it has a particular, as well. And, you know, I think they have a team that actually tests whether it has that pucker sound, you know. And, you know, there's lots of things you can do and that's going beyond just having a packaging in a box as well. So, yeah, I mean, I love tactile things. I'm in stores and I'm constantly touching things. And it's like, oh, I like the feel of that material. But, you know, it's the soft touch. There are, you know, there's particular, materials you can use and I, you know, I have a lot of paper samples. And I love soft touch, a kind of like rubbery touches. There's actually materials made of cotton. So it has a kind of cotton feel as well, but it's actually print and you can print on it. So I've used that on a swing ticket recently as well. And it just makes the world of difference. And, you know, it's a lot of things that you can do and it doesn't have to cost the earth either. So it's like really thinking what can I make? How can I make my packaging different? And what are my customers going to get from that? Because I think Customers are, you know, they really do like the experience that I get from Amazon, you know, buying something, buying products from the store or from Amazon and it's not sort of, you know, it's not... I guess you have to think about what the customer's getting at the end of it, and I think a lot of Amazon sellers don't really get it, and I think they're missing a trick, and they really need to start thinking more about the packaging, not just the layout as well, because that really matters as well, because there's some really bad design out there. But the packaging, I mean, you're right. It has to be special. It has to be unique. It has to appeal, and it has to give off that emotional resonance to the customer. Kevin King: It's similar to people wearing clothes or women especially because women like to dress up more than men. You have the basic structure of the woman but depending on whether she's wearing heels and a nice dress with a slit or she's wearing a workout thing to go yoga, she's going to have a different look and a different thing. It's the same thing with packaging. Whatever your customer avatar is, you want to appeal to those senses. Like I said earlier, we eat with our eyes first. And we judge things based on how they look, even though that might not be what they really are. I mean, that old saying, you judge a book by its cover, is unfortunately human nature. And it's the same thing when it comes to products and packaging. So should you have the same package for your e-commerce as you do if you're going retail? Or should you just make a really cool package, use it on e-commerce, and that's going to help you get into retail because you've already got a really cool package and maybe some buyer or someone's going to say like, oh, this would be great in the store. Should you have two different packagings or should they be? I'm not just talking about changing a little bit of the words of the UPC. I'm talking about totally different. Speaker 2: I don't think you should. No, I don't think you should. I mean, depending on the product, because some packaging is especially made for posting straight out into the post, so that's kind of like a completely different type of package, you know, the craft kind of double-walled kind of packaging. But if it's for a particular product, and you actually want to sell into a retail space or a wholesale space, I think definitely keeping the same packaging for retail is actually good because you've already got customer base and they'll know that if you've got a lot of customer following, they'll see it in the stores and that's quite exciting. I do see a lot of small businesses selling online and on Amazon and then they go into wholesale. They go into the big stores and department stores. They don't change the packaging at all unless there's a requirement to change particular packagings. For particular department stores, there is no need to change it anyway. And I guess if they're buying big volumes, even better, you can maybe tweak some of the actual materials as well. Because if you're using cheaper materials for just online on Amazon, I think it needs to look more premium, depending where the department store is as well. But I think generally, you don't need to tweak too much really. Kevin King: So a lot of people, especially in e-commerce, and you'll know this since you were selling for a while, They'll find a factory on Alibaba or Global Sources or somewhere that can actually make their product and they'll ask them, you know, what can you do for packaging? And the factory will say, oh, we have these three choices. We'll design it for you, which is a lot of cases that's where you get garbage. A lot of times, but that's a mistake though. I mean, when I was doing a lot of stuff in China, and I still do some, but when I was doing a lot of makeup stuff, I had three different factories doing my stuff. I had one factory actually making the products, another factory making my little bonus brush that went into it, and a third factory that I found independent of the original factory that was doing my packaging. And then they would send everything to one place and they would put it all together. So how important is that to actually, when you're trying to do good packaging, to not just go with You're a supplier that's actually making the real product and actually either ask them or find on your own somebody else that can actually do exactly what you want. Speaker 2: Yeah, so a lot of product suppliers already have a good relationship with printers anyway and print suppliers who will do the packaging. But if you want to source your own, I think it's also good as well because I think you're in more control in terms of what you can do. Maybe they have better pricing as well. I would always say shop around. Always get free quotes in terms of if you're going to get packaging made anyway. I think you should do that with your product anyway. Look at different suppliers and look at samples of what they produce as well. Going with a supplier that already has an in-house design team. Depending on what your product is, they can do something quite simple, sometimes quite nice, but if you want to be in more control of the artwork and everything else, keep it in-house. Keep your own designer that can design it, and you can get much more creative and more in control of that because I think sometimes the suppliers will, oh, I'll do this and do that, and they won't budge sometimes. But I think also, as you say, having a product here and an application there and then a finishing house with the packaging supplier, I think that's also good because obviously coming from the retail fashion world, with Ted Baker, we kept everything separate, the label separate, the buttons separate, and they couldn't counterfeit it. So we kept things quite safe as well. So depending on what your product is as well, if it's quite a high-value item, try to keep things separate. But I think design-wise and packaging-wise, I think you should source your own where you can as well because I think you're in much more control yourself. Kevin King: Is it better to use stock packaging or is it better to actually custom Design something from scratch like with 3D CAD software and everything. I've been to Cosmoprof which is a big Beauty show in the space like it's at the Mandalay Bay, huge show like 5,000 exhibitors in beauty but there's a whole section of like 30 or 40 companies that just there's just a bunch of empty boxes and empty bottles and all kinds of stuff. Is that the best way to do it or do you prefer to actually come up with your own very unique packaging and create the die cuts and all that kind of stuff? Speaker 2: I can create the die cuts myself, but I think if the supplier already has a die cut, it's absolutely fine. And then it's down to the materials. So I really go to town with the materials instead. I don't need to redesign something that's just going to be a box that, say, for example, a powder. I buy a lot of beauty products and they all come in very simple boxes. Every now and then, you might get something a bit more special and uniquely designed. Generally, perfume bottles are quite unique. But there's a lot of beauty packaging that's quite straightforward. And I don't think the customer actually expects it as well, depending on the price of the product as well. So if it's like a mid-range, it's not a luxury brand or anything, and your product, your makeup is mid-range, I don't think the customer will say, oh, this is a cheap box. If it's nicely designed and it's got a good logo and the layout's great, I don't think that really matters too much. Certain products, they don't need to be overly designed. They don't need to go to town, but you don't need to spend a big budget on it. If you're a luxury brand, then they might put a little bit more, but generally, I buy luxury brands as well, and it's like, oh, okay, it's nothing special. They might just have a foiled, blocked logo on it and it's the same carton. There's nothing special about it. You know, depending on your product, I think you have to think about where to draw the line in terms of getting a unique die cut done. So it really depends on the brand owner as well. Kevin King: And it goes beyond just physical products too. I mean, you can do this in And anything and food and everything. I mean there's a cookie place here in Austin called Tiff's Treats. And these cookies are like $2, $2.50 a piece. And they're freshly made. It's a chain. They turn it into a chain. But you go in and you choose a dozen cookies or something. They give you this really nice foil imprinted box. It says Tiff's Treats at the top. And they always put a ribbon around it. And they tie the ribbon a certain way. It's like a blue ribbon that's tied around it. So they present it to you almost like a gift. You know, with two hands and they present it to you and here's your box of cookies. It's not just like, you know, here's some cookies like at the bakery or something. It's all part of the experience and sometimes when I go in there to grab some cookies, I'm like, I just tell them I don't need the ribbon because all I'm gonna do is get in the car and rip the thing off, like get in there and get a cookie out for the drive home. But packaging, all these little things actually matter and because they do that, because I feel like I'm getting something of higher value, In my mind, I justify I'm willing to pay $2.50 a cookie or whatever instead of going down to the local supermarket and getting them for $0.30 a piece. It's a better product inside too. Where do you get your inspiration? Do you just go and just wander around shops or do you look online and you look in magazines? Where do you get your inspiration for your design? Speaker 2: I get from different places. I do like to shop around in department stores and stuff. I do love looking at packaging physically so I can see how it's printed, how it feels and sometimes how it opens as well. But I get a lot of inspiration online. So I do go on Pinterest a lot. Again, Pinterest, Instagram, and looking online generally for packaging things as well as packaging shows. I do go to a lot of packaging shows every year and to see if there's any newness. Generally, there's one or two things that are different, but I'm generally online a lot. You can find so much on Pinterest now. You just type it in or even on Google, but that's my go-to place if I don't have time to go to shows and things, but there is so much creativity. You'll click on one thing and if you use Pinterest, you'll know you can create boards. You can save boards, so you can save these pictures into there. And then it keeps suggesting more pictures of the same thing, so you could ask for what kind of category or what kind of packaging you're looking for. And I'm just stuffing all these boards with all these ideas and crazy packaging. And you'll get so much inspiration from there as well. And some things are so simple. Even a brown box can look amazing. And it really depends how you designed it as well. So, you know, there's savings in terms of using different materials and cheaper materials. But it's the way it's designed. It's the way it's printed. And, you know, it's how, you know, how the customer will see as well. And I think definitely, you know, my inspiration comes from all over. Kevin King: Sometimes packaging doesn't have to get, like she said, doesn't have to be complicated. A brown box with a, or even A simple white box with some gold foil or embossing or something on it, as simple as that can make something really stand out. There's all kinds of little small things you can do or just putting a UV coating on something or just changing the paper from 12 point to 14 point. There's so much you can do. So for Pinterest, Do you actually collect physical samples too? Do you save? I see a door behind you. Is there one of these closets where you open it up and there's boxes of all kinds of stuff going to fall out on you? Unknown Speaker: It's all under here. Kevin King: Oh, it's all under the desk? Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't see it. But yeah, I have boxes around me and I cannot help it. I have to swing tickets and bags as well. You know, when you go shopping, I collect bags as well. I've had bags for like 30 years, you know. I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to packaging and I just love it. If I see something I like, I always hold on to it. You know, there's this recent, this mascara I had. The actual stick itself is glittered. So it's glittered all around, but the box itself was glittered. So I thought, well, that's different. So I kept hold of that. I don't know why. And then there's particular boxes that have different openings or the way they've actually been cut or scored and having a particular product inserted in. And I think, oh, that's different. I've not seen that. So I keep hold of that in case that it comes up for a project or a client that needs something similar. And I always keep things for inspiration, things around me. But yeah, I do like to keep my eyes open because I do buy a lot of stuff. It's great. I love it and I have so much that I just want to use. I have all this product packaging under my desk and I can't wait. I also do see a lot of suppliers as well. They give me a lot of things. Oh, that's a nice candle box. Oh, I like the feel of that and a lot of beauty packaging as well. I do hoard a lot of things and I do take away a lot of things from suppliers as well. Kevin King: There's something else I think a lot of people miss when it comes to packaging too is that The actual user experience of unboxing. And so you have the nice package and maybe you got the nice texture and the nice printing and the nice design. But when they open that box and take the lid off and there's, I don't know, an electronic device or something in there and you can't even get your fingers around it. To get it out because it's in there so tight or you're having to turn the box over and like bang it on the table to make the thing fall out or something. The people that actually go that extra step and they put little like hooks or they put like little, you know, we used to do this with baseball cards. We'd take a piece of tape like scotch tape and just fold it over and we put one piece of the tape on the edge of the paper. And then fold over the other part in half so it's like it's not sticky anymore. It's like on it. But you could use that as a handle to grab and lift out. There's lots of little things like that that are part of packaging too, right? Speaker 2: Absolutely. And once we're talking about packaging, I received something today. Actually, it's for MD Hair actually. But I bought it and I thought, oh, it's quite expensive. So I thought, oh, it's for hair product. And I opened it up. I opened it up. And then it was, you get the card, but the actual product, can you see that? The actual package, the product itself, There was nothing to hold these things in. I was quite disappointed. Usually, you would have some sort of card inside to hold them in. This isn't cheap either. You get the lovely box and it's like, oh, that was a bit underwhelming. I thought, well, it would be nice to present it, but it's not. That's the thing, customer experience. I've bought a lot of things that open up. Sent through the post and, you know, you expect it to be, especially if you paid a bit more money for it, you expect it to be nicely presented and getting that whole unboxing experience and that was not pleasant. So, you know, it's thinking about that if you're selling a product that has multiple items in there or even just the one. It needs to be held in and in the post, it might have just flown around in the box. It could have got damaged or leaked as well. So it's thinking about the protection of it. Kevin King: It's also thinking about little extras. With UGC right now, there's tons of unboxing videos, especially when it comes to toys and stuff. And if you get creative with your packaging, it can help you go viral, actually. I mean, if you approach your packaging from a UGC creator-influencer point of view, it actually could help you a lot in that regard as well. But another thing that's really cool in many kinds of packaging is people don't think about extras. You know, sometimes when you buy Electronics, they may have the plug where it's for the UK, it's for the US, and it's for Europe, and you just swap out the back, so they got all three devices in there. That's one thing, but a lot of times, people will include an extra screw, or they'll include a little brush, a cleaning brush, or they'll include a little pad, or one of the guys that I used to buy back in the day, when before everything was digital, we'd buy beta tapes to do our video productions on, you know, to pop into the camera. The supplier was in Pennsylvania, and they'd ship them down to me in Texas, and they would include just a package of little M&Ms, one of those little packages like you get at Halloween, like a little small sample size, but just the fact of putting that in there. So putting a surprise in the package, you know, I'm not talking about like the example you just gave where there's a card on top, but putting a surprise. Maybe that company could have put like a little one ounce sampler size of one of their other products in there as a bonus with a little bow on it or something like that. There's a lot of cool stuff that you can do beyond just actual design of the artwork or design of the box as well. Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. It's getting that little bit extra and I think, oh, I wasn't expecting that and you know, I bought something in the States a while back and it was I think it was to do with cameras and things. I bought it from my husband and it came with an extra little dinosaurs, these little plastic dinosaurs and I kept ordering from them. They kept sending me different little dinosaurs but it was really cute. I had to wait a long time for the product to come from America but it's just those little things you didn't expect so I had them lined up on my desk. Again, buying something from other brands and you do get the sweeties sometimes and that is an added bonus. You don't expect it. It doesn't cost a lot either. Just think about what that experience the customer's getting. It's like that joy. You've really made their day. I've got a little surprise in here. And yeah, it's those little extras really makes a difference. It doesn't have to be a lot. It can be something so simple. You know, it could be a sticker, extra little stickers and stuff, you know, that they get inside their packaging and they could stick them around for whatever, you know, however you want to design them, whether they've got reminders and stuff. But yeah, I think, you know, you can do so much, you know, within the unboxing experience and in packaging in general. There are so many things. Even little hidden tabs. Sometimes you open a box. I can't remember which brand it was. You open a box and then inside you kind of got peel away or peel and reveal something. And it's like, Oh, I didn't think, you know, I didn't, I wasn't expecting that. And it's just even something like that. It's not even, you don't have to spend a giveaway, you know, it's just already inserted into the box. But something like that is a surprise. They weren't expecting it. And I think that's what you need to do more in packaging. Kevin King: So if I'm an e-commerce seller and I'm like, I'm listening to this, I'm like, Kitty, Kevin, this sounds cool. I want to up my game on packaging, but I don't have a clue what to do. All I know is what the supplier can give me. What should I do? Should I start looking on Pinterest? Should I start buying my competition? Should I contact you and say, help? Because I'm selling a dog leash, a basic product. And everybody else, all my other competitors are shipping it in a plastic bag. It's just a dog leash and nobody gives a shit about the packaging on a dog leash. Or do they? So, I mean, my ex-wife bought a Tiffany's dog collar Our dog leash, no dog leash, it didn't come in no damn plastic bag. It came in a Tiffany blue box all packaged up. So if I'm selling a dog leash I want to up my game on the packaging. What do I do? Speaker 2: You can look yourself, but come to me. I have actually designed dog leashes as well, packaging for dog leashes. If clients come to me, I will actually do the work for them. I would go and look at competitors for you, your existing competitors, and also outside of your arena as well, plus what other kind of packagings you do. Often, I've worked with clients with a different array of products. And often I come back when I present to them, this is what I'm coming up with ideas, and I show them their competitors, these are your competitors, and then some, and then this is what you can do with this type of packaging. And sometimes it's not even, you know, probably it's something completely out of that category, some completely random packaging that they've never thought of. Oh my God, I really like, you know, so I will come out with the extraordinary for the client. Obviously, I have budget in mind as well. So there are different levels of budget, mid-range and then a bit more wacky and if you've got a bit more budget to spend. But generally, I cover everything and looking at what can be done and can't be done and making sure that it's always better than whatever the competition is, even the top of the range as well. So I do make sure that everything is covered. And generally, they're not disappointed. And they're like, oh, what do we do now? So then I break it down and I give them their options, design it with their logos, and then they can go from there, really. And it's It's really sort of picking my brain. I'm here to problem solve. So that's what I do for people. And I generally think out of the box and not just the traditional designs that you would expect. So, yeah, I think definitely, you know, not just myself. I mean, I'm very good at what I do. But, you know, reach out to other designers as well, because they do have ideas. And generally, you might not think of that as well. So, yeah. Kevin King: Do you help them source where to actually get the packaging made as well or do you work within the parameters of whatever factory they've already got? Speaker 2: Depending if the brand owners want to work with their factory, so I can work with them, but I would design anything for them anyway. But if they have templates, then I work with that or if I've designed things off from scratch, so I've created my own templates as well. I think generally I would source it with their supplier firstly, but I also have contacts as well. So I do know factories that can source and make them for them as well. Kevin King: So I know a lot of people are probably listening to this. This sounds good, but this sounds like something that, what was it, Ted Baker? Speaker 2: Yeah, Ted Baker. I work with Ted Baker, so I work with a lot of companies. Kevin King: It sounds like something that Ted Baker, one of these brands that has a lot of money, would spend to do. I'm just some little e-com guy trying to make a buck on Amazon. What's this going to cost me to actually have really good design done? Speaker 2: You know what? The bigger the company, the more tighter they are with the budgets. I had really low budgets to work with. I had to really sort of make sure that, you know, I'd want to spend a lot but, you know, it's down to the materials and stuff and I would have to get it signed off but generally they would keep the margins low as possible. So, you know, it's working with the supplier to see how well they can—you know, I used to have to negotiate a lot. It's like, I really need to make this bag. This is a Christmas bag. I want LED lights in it as well. It cost us a pound. The bag actually cost a pound to make, which is not—I mean, this is like 10 years ago, but, you know, it's still—no, more than 10 years ago, 15 years ago. But, you know, that's quite a lot for spending on a bag. You buy the clothes, and you go away with a bag of LED lights. It's a Christmas tree, and it has LED lights. Yeah, and then the customer would come into the store thinking, oh, do I have to pay for the bag? No, no, no, you just take it away. You can just, it's free. You buy your clothes from Ted Baker and you go away, walk away with this bag with these lights. And it was, you know, it was great working with the suppliers like that. But I managed to get it down to a pound per bag, which, you know, we probably ordered about 20,000 bags or maybe more, you know, and then we had obviously different sizes as well. So the larger size would have the lights, the smallest wouldn't. It's just really working with your budgets and what you can afford and seeing what kind of reactions you want from your customers as well. Kevin King: So what kind of fees, do you work on a project basis or do you work on an hourly basis? Or what am I looking at if I come to you and forget about the manufacturing of it, I just want a cool package for my dog leash and I'm willing to spend a couple bucks and we'll sort that out. For the actual design work and the concepts and the research, what am I looking at? What's a range there that I might be looking at that's going to cost me? Speaker 2: As in price range? Kevin King: Yeah. Speaker 2: What are your services? Kevin King: Your services alone? Speaker 2: For my services, so I mean my packaging, well for one, say for example, it's just one packaging design because if you've got variations then it will... It will change as well, but for just one particular packaging, I charge from 950 pounds for a basic design, like layouts and stuff, using your logos. I'm not designing logos. It's just designs, ideas, concepts from there, but it really depends. If you want me to create a template for you, then I charge 250 pounds per template. On top, and then that's included with my design time already in there with ideas and stuff, but it really depends. No, I'm very fair because these are rates for Amazon sellers actually. So I charge a fair rate for Amazon sellers because I know they're on a budget and I enjoy what I do and I really want to give them great designs. And obviously, if they want logo designs and branding, because I do guidelines and everything, that's a completely different package. But packaging is from, so I guess I guess it's a hundred and something dollars in USD, but you know, it's from that. Yeah, from £950 onwards. It really depends. If you've got variations of things, it can be more, and then I work out how much time it's going to create. I've recently worked with a tea brand, and they had a new packaging design. I designed it. They had 16 variations of different organic teas and stuff, so I actually illustrated the designs of the actual ingredients as well, so I illustrated those. I didn't have a design logo. But it was creating all that, so that was a completely different cost. So I worked out to be much more generous than I should do. I didn't work out as per package. I did think, actually, that's going to take me so many days now or a couple of weeks. It really depends, but I don't charge the earth for it. I do agency-style projects and quality, but when I work with the brand owners, I'm one-to-one with them. I give them exactly what they need, and I'm always contactable. I enjoy what I do, and I just love it. It's less about the cost. It's about really giving them quality design. I do love working with Amazon sellers. Kevin King: Do you do any testing like with PickFu or any of the other platforms where you come up with three or four concepts for design and maybe the client goes and does it or you do it yourself and get some feedback? Speaker 2: Yeah, the client will do it. The client will do it themselves. I will give them a couple of designs and they've taken designs away and gone to PickFu and asked, oh, this is this one. I'm not sure about that and what color. So I've given variations and all logo designs and stuff and they pick the best ones that they think but I don't get involved in terms of which designs they should go for. I mean, I might have a personal preference but it's down to the brand owner as well. I might suggest, if I really think strongly that actually I really think this works, then I would let the owner know. Kevin King: So how important is it for packaging to be on brand? Because a brand has a brand identity and if a brand's done proper branding, they have a brand book. A font guide and the color guide and the logo's always got to be 0.3 millimeters from the left side or all these little things. A lot of people don't pay attention to that, especially e-commerce sellers that pay attention to this consistency from their packaging, to their website, to their marketing, to their emails, to their social media. How important is that to be consistent across the board? On that. Speaker 2: Well, that's what a brand is. If you're not consistent, you're not a brand. You have to be talking the same language across everything visual, everything verbal. So, you know, you have to, I mean, I do brand audits, design audits to see everything, like you've just mentioned, emails, social media, what does the packaging look like? What does it look like on your website? How is it all translating into your brand? I think a lot of Amazon sellers get it wrong because I see a lot of things that go wrong. It's like, well, that's completely different from that and your logo is different. Having a brand guideline, the brand Bible that tells you this is how you should be doing things and a lot of sellers go backwards. They create their logo and stuff and they think, well, that's enough. I know that these colors, that's it. They don't have a brand story. They don't really know what their mission is or their vision and knowing all the rest of things about the logo because I work with some brand owners that don't They don't know much about brand guidelines, and then they've got about five different logos. I thought, no, I can't do that. And they said, well, can you just move the brand name away from the icon that's part of the logo to sit somewhere else? I can't really do that because that's your logo. Well, I can't take it apart. So it's really trying to educate brand owners about, you know, the branding and how important it is to be consistent. Because if you're seen somewhere on, say, social media, your logo is different from what's on your packaging and what's on Amazon. They were thinking, well, that's a completely different brand. And, you know, are people going to trust you because you're not, you know, you're not cohesive. There's nothing consistent. So you really want to build that reputation, that brand trust as well, and that perception that you are a serious brand. Kevin King: Can you describe one of the coolest packages that you've ever designed? Speaker 2: The coolest packaging. Kevin King: One of those you're like really proud of. You're like, oh, this was an amazing product. This is so much fun. It turned out so cool. And I'm like, this is my showpiece of what I can do. Speaker 2: Oh, Kevin, I'm really critical about what I design. I'm always trying to design the next best things. I like my designs of what I do, but I am always looking for the next best thing. So what I've done in the past, you know, I've done a lot of great things with Ted Baker, you know, and a lot of packagings with them. Kevin King: Tell me something cool. Speaker 2: I mean, I did this whole – Inspire me. Kevin King: Give me an idea of where you're going. Okay. Speaker 2: So they had a sub-brand called Endurance, the suits. Endurance suits. They had different types of suits. One was called the connoisseur. One was like for daytime. One was more casual. They had different names for each of them. So I created CD-ROMs. I actually created a video with working with a videographer. This design swing ticket. So you'd go in and it was a concept store we created. I helped create actually. So they had these robots like iRobot back there. We're talking about back in 2003, 2004, we launched this concept store in London and they had these iRobot things and we created a lot of things around it that it would be an interactive store that you'll just go to this console, you'll put this card in which I designed with the packaging. It just looks like a really cool black slate design with some laminated lines and you put your details in, your sizing and stuff and there's This thing will come through the store behind from the storeroom and it'll drop your suit off. You have all these things in store. I designed the boxes, the bags, everything that was interactive in the store through to the machine consoles, the screens, what they would look like as well. We'd see what would they do. It was all conceptual, but it worked. It was there for quite a few years, but the suits were amazing anyway. They existed, but we created this whole thing around being technological. And great back then. And it was great. So, you know, I'm, you know, this is one of those things I had a hand in. But, you know, I always loved designing things. And I guess I worked for Kafkiston after Ted Baker for six years. Kafkiston is a very British brand. Florals, homeware stuff, if you see polka dots and florals, you know, that's Cath Kidston. And she was a very British brand and she was lovely. So I rebranded for her when I joined. I went into the warehouse. The first day in the warehouse when I joined Cath Kidston, I looked at everything, all the tags, all the labels, nothing was consistent. So it was just like, oh, no. So I came back and said, look, we have to change it because it's not Cath Kidston Limited London. Or is it Cath Kidston? Or is it Cath Kids? You know, nothing was consistent. So we had to bring that all back in. I rebranded everything, wrote the brand guidelines with the brand consultant that came in and Cath herself, and redesigned everything that was packaging-wise, the swing tickets. And then I actually got to work with Apple as well because we had a lot of—Cath Kitton had a lot of Apple products like iPad covers and phone cases. So I worked with Apple in terms of designing the packaging for them. So it was in their stores as well. So, it was a lot of things that I could get involved with and that was really fun. I guess it's just having a lot of creative fun in what I do. I don't have a particular favorite because all of them are so unique and different as well. I have a lot I'm one of the Amazon sellers that I work with and some of them I'm currently still working on, so I can't really mention it because I don't know if they're live yet. But there's a lot of things I just want to get even more creative with, but budgets are a constraint as well, so I can't create something too wacky and out there. And I'd love to work for a brand that would have the budget. I could just create something amazing. Kevin King: That's awesome. So you did a lot of point of purchase display and a lot of interactive exhibits and stuff as well. That's cool. In-store stuff. That's awesome. Well, Kitty, if people want to reach out to you and say, this sounds good, I want her to take a stab at designing something for me, what's the best way for them to do that? Speaker 2: Okay, it's probably best to just go to my website. That's me, branddesign.com. Kevin King: Memebranddesign.com? Speaker 2: That's correct. And if you really want to contact me, you can just Kitty at mebranddesign.com. So, you know, I'm, I'm there and you know, if you can't find me anywhere, then just type in Kitty Lai brand. Kitty Lai brand will come up. You'll find me somewhere on the Google. Kevin King: L-A-I. Speaker 2: L-A-I, yes. Kevin King: K-I-T-T-Y L-A-I. Well, Kitty, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you coming on and chatting today. This has been cool to geek out on packaging. Speaker 2: Awesome. It's lovely. I'm so passionate about packaging, so I'm really happy to talk to you today. Kevin King: I really appreciate you coming on. It's been great chatting. Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Kevin. It's been brilliant. Thank you. Kevin King: People always eat with their eyes first, and packaging is one of the best places to actually reinforce What someone just bought and that they've made the right decision and that they've paid the right price for it. Some great stuff here with Kitty. Reach out to her if you are serious about your package design because she's one of the best in the space. Tons of experience and she does a really good job. And don't forget, if you haven't, subscribe to my newsletter, BillionDollarSellers.com. BillionDollarSellers.com, brand new issue every Monday and Thursday. We'll be back again next week with another episode of AM PM Podcast. In the meantime, remember, always surprise people with an unexpected gift. Always surprise with an unexpected gift. See you again next week.