While over-packaging is often criticized as a way for companies to maximize profits, it can also be seen as a necessary change to meet the aesthetic demands and design-consciousness of modern consumers. In addition to the functional aspects of a product, its aesthetic design is also an important purchase decision factor, especially for younger consumers.
Nowadays, many products sold in packaging, such as food, cosmetics, and gift sets, are criticized by consumers. This is because they are over-packaged to deceive consumers and maximize profits. The term “overpriced” is often used by consumers to denigrate products with fancy packaging and little substance. It literally means that the packaging is more than necessary. Think of it this way: “I bought nitrogen, but it came with a box of sweets”. This phrase is often used by consumers to criticize companies that pay more attention to the packaging than the actual content of the product.
The basis for this idea that today’s products are overpackaged is the way they used to be. Products that used to have a lot of content have become less content and more colorful. This leads us to believe that companies selling sweets, alcohol, gift sets, etc. are trying to deceive consumers and take advantage of them by over-packaging. While products of the past emphasized functionality and practicality, packaging is becoming more important as one of the many marketing strategies to attract consumers.
But is this change just a ploy by companies to maximize their profits? I don’t think it’s about hype, but about meeting consumer needs. Nowadays, consumers increasingly value design and are influenced by it when making purchases. In addition to the practicality of a product, its aesthetic beauty, or “packaging,” has become an important consideration.
Especially in the modern world, visuals play an important role. Even a bag of snacks has to be eye-catching to consumers, and in restaurants, the design of the interior, tableware, and the food itself plays a role in making customers feel delicious. Apple, one of the hottest brands these days, has created a large audience of Apple fans with its simple yet classy design. As you can see, design has become one of the most important factors that consumers consider when choosing a product, not only in terms of its functionality, but also in terms of how it looks to the consumer’s eyes.
Moreover, if you’re a business or seller targeting younger people, you need to pay attention to the design of your products. This is because young people are particularly concerned with how they look. For example, the search for well-wrapped gift sets during the holidays, splurging on luxury bags and clothes, or buying expensive water bottles with eye-catching designs are all indicative of the modern consumer. This reflects a social climate that emphasizes the “pleasure of ownership” as much as the functional value of a product.
How can producers improve the appearance of their products to make them stand out from the crowd? In the case of clothes, accessories, and cosmetics, quantity is not enough to compete with quality, and many products are qualitatively similar to each other. In this situation, you need to improve the quality of your product by making technological advances, but if your competitors produce the same kind of product, they will be similar in technology. In this case, you need to gain a competitive edge with your packaging. Packaging is now considered part of the product, as it does more than just protect the product.
This is especially true for edible products, especially sweets, where the content is more important than the packaging. Of course, there will always be some consumers who don’t think packaging is important. However, consumers get excited about snacks from the pictures and text on the packaging, and the packaging provides information about the flavor, amount, etc. that makes them salivate. Consumers are already judging the quality of a product by its packaging design before they buy it, and as a result, the “first impression” of a product plays a big role in its sales performance.
Good packaging is now part of the global product landscape. That’s why sellers, whose job it is to fulfill consumer desires, need to pay close attention to the packaging of their products in order to cater to the interests of their consumer base. In order to fulfill the aesthetic needs of consumers and attract their attention, sellers or producers change the packaging of their products to make them more colorful and eye-catching. When you realize that a product has less content than before, you might wonder if the producer has cheated to increase profits. But the truth is that the quality of the product evolves as interests change.
Of course, reducing the quantity or deteriorating the quality of a product just to save money on production costs, without evolving the packaging, is deceiving the consumer. This is especially true in the case of sweets, where the content may be more important than the packaging. There are many cases where the packaging has improved, but the amount of content is noticeably smaller than in the past. If there are such companies or sellers, they should be penalized.
Currently, countries are cracking down on overpackaging through guidelines issued by environmental ministries and agreements signed by producer organizations and consumer citizen groups. These regulations are not just about protecting consumers, but also about contributing to environmental issues. This is because excessive packaging leads to unnecessary waste of resources, which can have a serious impact on the global environment in the long run.
On the other hand, there’s also the fact that design is becoming more important to most businesses that sell goods these days, and young people in particular tend to care a lot about their appearance. Of course, it depends on the nature of the product whether it’s the content or the packaging that’s prioritized, but there’s no denying that packaging is becoming increasingly important and producers have no choice but to follow this trend. With that in mind, the diversification of packaging designs and the increasingly larger size of the packaging compared to the contents can be seen as a development of products to expand the consumer base. Before you criticize the oversized packaging if you’re not satisfied with the contents, think about how attractive the packaging was to make you want to buy the product.
