The market for household goods is undergoing its own packaging transformation influenced by a few key industry trends, including customization, intelligent packaging, and sustainability.
In a recent Packaging OEM research report titled, Household Goods: Customized, Intelligent, and Sustainable, we explore how producers are addressing these issues. In addition, the report outlines how OEMs and suppliers can assist household goods manufacturers when faced with challenges that impact their ability to deliver smart, flexible, and environmentally friendly packaging.
In this report, household goods are defined as small appliances and homewares as well as non-durable packaged goods, including cosmetics, personal care, toiletries, cleaning products, and garden and outdoor goods. We cover flexible food packaging and beverage packaging trends in separate reports, with a third report coming out in November covering the pharmaceutical market.
When it comes to household goods, here are the areas that require more attention and expertise:
Customization is about cultivating personalized consumer experiences. Compared to two years ago, 50% more brands have identified personalization as a core strategy of their business. And they plan to increase spending on personalization capabilities by an average of 29%.
This is driven by the unboxing trend popping up all over TikTok and other social media. And customization can come in the form of personalized labels or novel features like textured fillers or decorated box interiors.
The trick here is to have a solid handle on data flow and management to sort incoming orders and accurately assign custom items.
Intelligent Packaging is another area where household goods manufacturers are focusing attention.
This includes two key functions: increasing the level of information communicated by the package and making the package interactive to engage customers.
Things like 2D barcodes, or QR codes can provide tracking information of where the product has been, or more information on the manufacturing process. In a recent Packaging OEM webinar, two experts from GS1 US talked about the 2D barcode and all the benefits it brings, especially for the food and beverage industry where allergen and nutrition information can be brought right up on a consumer’s phone.
As another example, a company called Wiliot has created an ambient IoT tag that can give the package a ‘voice.” All of these technologies can be applied to household goods packaging to add more value and customer interaction.
Augmented Reality is another way to add a powerful punch to packaging, immersing consumers in a brand experience by digitally altering the environment around them. For example, they could scan a code to bring a label to life with animation. Or provide a simulated environment coupled with audio cues to virtually transport a customer around a store.
Sustainability, driven by environmentally conscious customers, is also key to household goods packaging.
One of the respondents in the report, a director at a CPG company, noted that “one of our biggest initiatives in the coming year is to reduce our packaging.”
As an example of that, Hormel Foods recently released its Global Impact Report, in which they highlighted 2023 progress, including the reduction of product packaging by nearly 1.7 million pounds.
To do that, it requires bringing together the design team, the packaging engineers, and the OEMs, who one of Hormel’s senior scientists said are “integral to the success of these projects.”
Our report also explores the impact of ink and marking, because traditional non-sustainable inks can result in otherwise recyclable packaging being diverted to landfills. But there are new plant-based inks that wash off easily in the recycling stream that need to be considered.
All of this requires flexibility built into equipment and the design process, allowing for handling many different packaging formats, materials, and speeds.
It also requires data management, because as they are generating and capturing large volumes of data that should be analyzed to make process improvements. It can also help with customer engagement.
For example, analyzing product customization data can lead to predicting the popularity of individual customization choices. And leveraging smart packaging data allows for accurate tracking of product movement through the supply chain.
The role of OEMs
OEMs and their technology suppliers can deepen the relationships with CPGs by created a holistic, knowledge-based ecosystem that comprises partnerships via education, training, and services.
Read more from this report here.
