Tin box: when the material of your packaging is the real secret weapon that sells

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Tin box: when the material of your packaging is the real secret weapon that sells
To work in the study of a functional packaging for sale – as we conceive it here at Packaging In Italy – could suggest a selection of technical aspects, materials, and, only at a later stage, identifying the main guidelines.

So, do we first sit around a table to reason abstractly and, at the end, we decide technical details of the material to be used?

Not really. In fact, there are cases where the choice of the material is an integral part of the features that make a packaging functional for sales.

That is, selecting a material and modeling the packaging development based on that material. Packaging contributes to the increase in sales.

For many, it is difficult to understand, but according to facts, sales change for the better when the choice of material was conducted in a strategic manner and not as if it was one of the many technical details.

This is the specific case of a tin packaging – technically tin box – a very distinctive material that can be often functional for the use of the product; such as in the case of the can of oil, the classic cans of soda or the common tuna cans.

In these cases, choosing a can also has practical reasons, but there are situations where to develop a can container – despite not having practical reasons – is a winning choice for boosting sales.

How do we tell if a can could be a driving force for the sales of your product?

The first step is to separate the product from its packaging: let’s get into our heads that packaging, in this case, is not only functional to the product and its use, but it also becomes a product itself and the consumer sees it exactly like that!

It is not an assumption, it is a fact – and I want to prove it in this article. In the case of food tin box, the packaging itself acquires a value that lives regardless of the product.

For this reason, in trying to identify the needs of the consumer, it will be good to find answers through the choice of packaging.

There are basically THREE aspects that make a tin packaging a success factor:

→ its reusability (I, many time, buy and reuse the packaging for other purposes)

→ its value as a collectable item (I buy and collect the package)

→ 100% recyclable material (determining factor for the environment and in today’s buying reasons)

Specifically, what do I mean?

There are some solutions where packaging is not only seen acting as a product container or as a product exhibitor on the shelf, but it is conceived from the start as a separate object that can be, later, reused for other purposes or just collected. And that is how it acquires immediately its own value that can be added to the value or purpose of the product it contains.

Taking it to an extreme, this concept can turn some choices of packaging into the driving feature for the sale: you buy the product almost exclusively to own the tin packaging that contains it!

A recent and clear – for everyone – example of a square tin box packaging designed as a collectable item is the Caffé Illy set of cans.

Notwithstanding, there are many less famous examples where the package is immediately identified as a valuable object that contributes to motivate the final purchase.

The festivity sweets industry is certainly suitable. In these cases, the product is often purchased as a gift, the packaging maintains the above mentioned characteristics, such as reusability and collectibility, and it helps to create a stylish image for the gift – very important aspect when selecting a gift – and that’s why it wins its challenge on the shelf.