The Heinzeroth Blog

Before Covid-19 safety measures became part of the shopping experience, the role of product packaging and P.O.P. was mostly to provide an immersive consumer experience for your brand. Capture attention. Generate interest. Convert browsers into buyers. (etc.).

And while those in-store merchandising tasks are still important, consumers are expecting more from their shopping trips these days. As reflected in national surveys, consumers prefer safe practices by the retailer. But taking this to a level that possibly affects your merchandising, how might those shopper expectations about safety carry through to preferences in packaging? And if you provide signage, custom racks or other physical display systems, is the format helping to make the shopping experience as safe as it can be?

Would you shop at a retail store that didn’t implement some sort of safety measures to protect its customers from Covid-19? Do you notice when someone inside the store is improperly wearing a face mask (or not at all)? Do you look for the hand sanitizer station when you walk in or perhaps note if there are “Social-Distancing” floor stickers at checkout?

For any of us that have worked extensively over the years on packaging design, planograms, POP messaging and other in-store tactics, the dramatic shift toward online sales is a crystal-clear call for omni-channel thinking. It’s evident that we must present products in the best light for sales conversions “everywhere” while certainly not forgetting a continued strong focus on brick and mortar stores. To make the most of this new shopping landscape, there are some emerging best practices worth noting.