Packing, Packaging and Labeling

 

Packing and Packaging
 

Need of Packing & Packaging

 

1. Protection

a)       Protection from damage

b)      Protection from evaporation

c)       Protection against Spoilage

d)      Protection against Pilferage

e)      Protection against leakage

f)        Protection of the quality of goods

 

2. Promotional Role

1. Self-Service
2. Consumer difference
3. Product identification
4. Effective sales tool

 

Kinds of Packaging

 

1. Consumer Packaging
2. Family Packaging
3. Re-use Packaging
4. Multi Packaging

 

Requisites of Good Packaging

 

1. Attractiveness
2. Protective Strength
3. Consumer’s convenience
4. Economy

 

Packing Materials

 

1. Earthenware
2. China Jars
3. Wooden boxes
4. Cardboard Containers
5. Gunny Bags
6. Glass
7. Tin
8. Plastic
9. Tetrapacks
10. Flexible Containers

 

Social View of Packaging

 

•       Pollution Control

•       Resource Scarcity

•       Gauging the reaction of Consumers to Packaging

 

Advantages of Packing & Packaging
 

1. It protects goods on its route from the manufacturer to the consumer or industrial user against breaking, spoilage, leakage or pilferage.
2. It facilitates branding and advertising of products.
3. It is useful in getting display in retail stores which usually suffer from the shortage of space.
4. It helps the seller to increase his sales and obtain higher prices than he could get for similar goods handled in the bulk.
5. It Protects the quality of the products.

 

6. It ensures the supply of goods of right quality in desired quantity to consumers.
7. A company with several products gets the advantage of the goodwill or one product to push the sale of other products by using similar package with the “same colour scheme and name.”
8. Printed literature containing information about the method of using the product can be easily passed on to the consumers by putting it in the package.
9. An increase ease of handling or a reduction in losses due to damage may cut marketing costs.

 

10. Packaging gives the product a prestige, and individuality which   are not possessed by goods sold in the loose form by retailers.  It helps to identify a product and thus may prevent substitutions of  competitive goods.
11. Compared with products sold in bulk, packaged goods, usually, are more convenient, cleaner and less susceptible to losses from evaporation, spilling and spoilage.
12. At the selling point, the package serves as a ‘silent salesman’ encouraging impulse buying.  While in the possession of the customer, it induces the customer to reorder the same brand and thus stimulates ‘repeat sale’.

 

Disadvantages of Packing & Packaging

 

1. Unless the package is transparent, the buyer cannot judge the contents by appearance, if information about the quality on the package label is absent, the buyer has to buy almost blindly.
2. It the consumer wants a specific quantity, he may not have that amount when goods are sold in packages.
3. There is no way to check the weight and volume of the contents unless the buyer opens the packages to ascertain the weight.  Packages sizes inflate the contents.

 

4. During the period of rising prices less contents are packed in the                same package and apparently same prices are charged.
5. Packaging may create health hazards for consumers.  Certain plastic food packaging has been shown to cause cancer.  Packages stored in godowns are susceptible to infection.

 

Labelling

 

•       Label is a small slip placed on or near anything (product) to denote its nature, contents, ownership, destination, etc.  The function of standardization is made perfect and known to the users through labels.  Packages afford a place where the labels could be affixed. It is a medium through which the manufacturer gives necessary information to the user or consumer.

•       It is defined as a part of a product which carries a verbal information about the product of the seller.

•       A label plays an important role in making the packaging and branding functions meaningful.  Hence these 3 functions are closely related.

 

 

Functions of Labelling

 

1. Describe the product & specify its contents.
2. Identification of the Product or Brand.
3. Grading of Products.
4. Helps in Promotion of Products.
5. Providing Information Required by Law.

 

 

 

Advantages of Labelling

1. 
   Labelling is a social service to customers, who very often do not know anything about the product’s characteristics features. False claims are prevented by using labels.
2. It avoids price variations by publishing the price on the label.
3. It helps advertising activity of the organization. Label is the medium to popularize the product.
4. It helps the customers to assess the superiority of the product.
5. It is a guarantee for the standard of the product.  Hence it raises the prestige of the product and of the manufacture.
6. It gives all needed information to the buyers & avoids confusion.

 

Disadvantages of Labelling
 

1. For an illiterate this is of no use.
2. It increases the cost of the product, since labelling involves expenditure on the part of the manufacturer.
3. Labelling is effective only where standardization is compulsory.
4. It aims at mainly popularizing the product rather than giving information to the consumers.
5. It enables the customers to weigh & compare the advantages of products before they are used.  This ultimately ends in discarding of one product in favour of the other.