177: Package Design Tips for New Hardware Products

May 25, 2023

With Justin Chen, Co-Founder of PickFu

Hosted by Kevin Mako, President of MAKO Design + Invent

177: Package Design Tips for New Hardware Products

As the Co-Founder of PickFu, a leading platform facilitating real people’s input on crucial visual decisions, Justin Chen brings a wealth of expertise. With a remarkable track record of administering over 5 million queries in the past 12 years, Justin is well-positioned to share invaluable knowledge with inventors, startups, and small manufacturers. Today, he focuses on the significance of hardware product packaging, offering insights on designing exceptional packaging and harnessing real feedback to iteratively enhance and refine your package design for optimal results.

Today you will hear us talk about:

While friends and family feedback can be helpful, it’s crucial to also consider the competition to gauge packaging standards.
Neglecting packaging as an afterthought can be a costly mistake since it plays a significant role in your product’s success.
Ensure your packaging is eye-catching to stand out from competitors.
Adding badges to your packaging can attract customers and generate interest.
Informative packaging should highlight the essential selling points of your product.
Gather feedback from people to rank the selling points of your packaging.
Anticipate the questions potential buyers may have and address them in your packaging.
Treat hardware packaging as a digital billboard, making it visually appealing and engaging.
Incorporate images of your physical packaging into your digital marketing materials.
Attention to detail in your product packaging instills confidence in your product’s quality.
Create multiple variations of your packaging design, starting with broad creative options and obtaining feedback to select your favorite.
Continuously iterate and refine your packaging design to narrow down the best option.
Test your finalized package design against competitors to reduce packaging risks.
Engage customers by asking them about the functionality of your new hardware product.
Hardware startups should prioritize high-quality and informative packaging as essential factors for success.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

1:20 – Package design is often an afterthought to a hardware startup
2:40 – How do you make the best package design so that you can sell the most of your hardware product?
2:50 – Packaging depends on your category
2:55 – Look at your competition, either direct or indirect competition, to see what current packaging best practices are in your niche.
3:00 – Think about where your packaging is going to be sold: Retail, Amazon, Direct to Consumer, Crowdfunding, wholesale, etc.
3:15 – Packaging is a huge way that people buy stuff, people judge books by the cover.
3:20 – Packaging has to be eye-catching
3:30 – Packaging needs to be informative.
3:40 – Highlight aspects of your product that are unique, special, etc.
5:20 – Educate your customer through your packaging
5:30 – Run a focus group that finds the important selling points of your product, and even rank those selling points.
6:00 – Packaging is essentially your digital billboard
6:05 – Think about using your physical packaging in your digital marketing images.
6:50 – The more detail and quality you put into your packaging, the higher the probability that a customer will buy your product.
7:30 – How do you iteratively design your packaging over time using customer feedback?
8:15 – Keep iterating on your design, and gathering feedback, until you feel like you have hit the best version.
8:30 – After you have iterated your own package design, now compare your design against competitors to ensure yours stands out the most to your prospective customers.
9:00 – Confusion is not good in customer surveys, better to do micro surveys with clear questions or clear decisions to derive the best.
10:00 -Getting quality feedback de-risks the decisions and the actual packaging prints.
10:30 – The founder doesn’t always have all the answers, especially with how to capture your prospective customers via your packaging messaging.
11:30 – A simple question is asking your customer what the product does, based on your packaging.
12:00 – As a founder, it is hard to step back to put yourself in the mind of someone who has never seen your product before.
13:00 – What are some of the trends in hardware packaging these days?
13:20 – More informative packaging is becoming more important to customers.
13:25 – Higher-quality packaging is important too.

EPISODE LINKS

Justin Chen Links:

LinkedIn | PickFu

PTC Links:
https://www.ptc.com/
OnShape | Creo

Kevin Mako Links:
Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Partner: PTC’s best-in-class software solutions Onshape: The only cloud-native product development platform that delivers full-featured computer-aided design (CAD), integrated product data management (PDM) and enterprise analytics in a single system, and Creo: 3D CAD solution that provides designers with the most innovative tools to build better products faster, such as generative design, additive manufacturing, real-time simulation, IIoT, and augmented reality.

MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves.

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