Packaging your Etsy products: Tips, tricks, and ideas to stand out

What happens after you spend hours perfecting your products, setting up your store, and marketing your products on Etsy?

The coveted sale!

Whether you’re just starting out as an Etsy seller or you’re a pro with thousands of customers, branding and packaging your products can take your store to the next level, increase customer love and loyalty, and bring in new business through referrals.

For example, if you’ve ever opened an Apple product, you can tell the company puts a lot of thought into their brand and packaging. The design of the boxes carefully contour the products and everything fits perfectly. It’s clean, neat and simple yet feels techy and fancy.

How a product is packaged often leaves a satisfied thought in the buyer's mind that affects how they see that company in the future, how they talk about it with others and their possible future orders.

When you make your customers smile even after the sale they are more likely to spend money with you in the future.”

Impressing your customers

Etsy is the most creative community of homemade sellers online. Your buyers appreciate creativity and talk about the products they find. Few online communities and stores rely so much on word-of-mouth as Etsy does, so it makes sense to take extra measures to delight customers in that way.

How you brand and package your product is a simple way to ensure future orders and get satisfactory feedback on your sales. Remember, your reviews are key to showing others how great your product is and give others confidence that they’ll have an equally rewarding experience when buying from you.

This can be done without a huge investment and goes a long way in impressing customers.

Impressing customers with a great buying experience does not need a huge investment and can be done with a few simple tricks and hacks to your packaging and “unboxing”.

Below we’ll look at how to create or update your branding and packaging to delight your customers and get more sales.

What is branding & how can you do it well?

What company offers Free 2 Day Shipping to their premium customers?

Amazon- of course. They’ve gone out of their way to make sure the world knows that if you sign up as a Prime customer, you’ll always get 2 day shipping.

They’ve branded themselves well (with a little help of their iconic custom packaging tape) as the go to place for online shopping that doesn’t take forever to get in hand. Whenever their customers go online to look for a product, they know to check Amazon because they already get awesome shipping.

You can do something similar with your store. Custom packaging helps people think of for a certain product or service when a particular problem comes to mind.

Every time your business interacts with the buyer, or gets in front of them (with one of your purchases) you have the opportunity to help them remember you for next time.

So you want to make sure they are:

1. Enjoying the emails, packaging and buying process with your business.
2. Making a connection with you and your store that they’ll remember later.

6 simple ways to improve packaging for Etsy sales

1. Wrap or bag your products before placing them in a shipping container. When you take extra care to double package like this, your buyers will see that you take pride in your work.
2. Dress it up. Decorate with stickers, stamps, ribbons, ties, drawings, tags, or other small embellishments that show you’ve taken extra time to care about their orders.
3. Use eco friendly products. Buyers are becoming more aware of their carbon footprints, and especially appreciate sellers that understand this. Use paper instead of plastic and reusables (like cloth bags) when you can.
4. Keep it safe. While remembering to be eco friendly, take extra care when you are packaging fragile items.
5. Keep it secure. While some products aren’t fragile, they might still be damaged in shipping- ripped paper, untied bows, wrinkled, etc. Always go beyond what you need to, to make sure you ensure a quality experience for your customer.
6. Surprise them. People love to get surprises. You can include little gifts as a thank you, without breaking the bank. A popular way to do this is to include something related to your brand, so that it works for multiple purposes.

6 tips for branding your Etsy products

1. Have a professional logo and official business name. People need something to recognize. Choose a name and logo that accurately depicts your business. You can get creative too with a logo shape that represents what you’re selling.
2. Use your company name and logo in all of your communications. Consistency is key! Your customers will appreciate the simplicity and predictability when you use your company name and logo in your emails, on invoices, in shipping and on receipts.
3. Place your logo or brand name on all items. Use your logo in strategic ways by branding your box as it travels across the country, attach close your tissue paper inside, or to fix instructions to your products such as packaging, item tags, price tags and directions.
4. Give the gift with branding. A simple way to delight your buyers is to include a small gift. This could be stickers, bags, stationery, or a promotional item.

Here is a tweet of a consumer talking about how she loves getting stickers in her orders:

And, in this article by Shopify, they discuss how using small gifts and packaging inserts help your brand to meet or exceed expectations with your customers.

1. Stay on theme. Keep your colors, graphics, and style on theme. A simple style will present a professional brand that consumers are more likely to trust and will make it easier for them to identify and recall your store when you send promotional emails or ask for a review.
2. Decorate the outside. especially in bigger cities, this is really common for companies to put their logos and brand names on the outside of the box, make sure it’s easy to understand what your company offers from the logo/name, so it works as an advertisement for you.

Here’s a great article by Everything Etsy where they share some creative packaging ideas or popular Etsy shops.

Getting started With stickers & labels for branding & packaging

Decide what you need, by asking yourself:

• Where can I use labels for my products? This is a good question if you sell products that come in bottles or jars.
• Do I want stickers for my packaging? This is an especially good option if you are shipping to large cities.
• Would my customers enjoy stickers of my logo or brand?
• Do I want to include stickers for every order or just orders over a certain amount?
• How many labels or stickers will I need for a few months of orders?

Get your design- If you don’t already have a logo or design for your Etsy business, there are a lot of design tools you can use. Check out our free design tool, Studio.

Place your order- When you have your design ready and you know how many labels and stickers you want to order, you can choose the type of label or sticker you want and upload your design.

Conclusion

By branding your Etsy products and shop, your buyers will see you as a professional and legitimate store that appreciates their customers and strives to impress them. Go ahead and use some of the tips we’ve shared above, like decorating, or being creative with your packaging and shipping.