Every brand wants its unboxing to be bold and memorable, but businesses now have something else to think about: making sure that their packaging doesn't produce waste!
Consumers are growing increasingly conscious about the environment, and they are making purchasing decisions accordingly. In 2019, wasteful packaging is only going to attract the wrong kind of attention for your brand!
Despite what some might say, it's no longer necessary to choose between branding and sustainability when it comes to your packaging needs. For eco-friendly brands especially, a low-impact design is the key to a great unboxing experience.
We speak to one small business owner who has done exactly that! Kimberly Waldropt, the founder of natural soap and skincare brand TERRA-TORY, shows us how she has channeled the unboxing phenomenon without compromising her core values.
(In Kimberley’s own words):
My name is Kimberly Waldropt. I’m a FIT graduate with a background in Technical Design. I left the industry after 6 years in my profession and had no intention of going back. The quality of life was very low working in the Garment Industry. So, I sat down with my family and asked if I could run the family business again, after 20 years of it being dormant. My mom approved!
My mom was a soap and candle maker, and she ran a small business called “Not Just Candles”. She made all sorts of bath and body products. She sold them in stores and I attended many markets with her. I loved spending time with my mom. She taught me how to make soap and candles from scratch since the age of nine. The house ALWAYS smelled amazing! That is where my roots started with TERRA-TORY - spending special moments like that with my mom.
My vision is to be the alternative soap brand that bridges the gap between the miseducation of soap making and skincare. There is so much information that my community DOESN’T know about the products they use. My aim is to be an educator and to provide a product that serves individuals, like myself, who suffer from skin ailments that are caused and worsened by many commercial products. The power of nature is still underrated - I want to be the face of my generation that brings back the power of all-natural skincare products. Especially made using an ancient method, like the Cold Process Method.
Q. Take us step by step through your process of packaging your parcels. How to do you make the unboxing experience as unique and personalized as possible?
A: I order the largest size of noissue tissue paper for my unboxing process. Because my bars are much smaller than the sheets themselves, I shape them into the sizes I need for folding. I wrap each bar with my custom printed tissue paper, then slap my label on it!
To add a personalized touch point, all of my customers have the option to choose a more eco-conscious packaging experience. Instead of wrapping each individual bar, I also line my shipping boxes with my noissue custom logo paper instead and send it on its way! With this method, the customer is creating less waste but is still confident in using a biodegradable packaging material. I make sure to include my logo, so it makes my customers feel that TERRA-TORY was the right choice.
Q: What does sustainability mean to your brand? What steps have you taken as a business to lower your environmental footprint, and how do you showcase this to customers?
A: Being a sustainable brand means so much to me. There are so many brands that use fancy packaging and you simply don’t know what to do with it, let alone how to dispose of it properly!
This makes the conversation about being more eco-friendly easier for my audience, because it’s a mentality that’s often pushed to the back of our minds. I really encourage my customers to shop in bulk, as shopping in bulk and using the ‘no waste’ packaging option lowers waste and reduces the impact of shipping. Instead of shipping 10x a year, they can ship only 5 times by simply spending a little more on the product (and much less on shipping fees!)
Q: What made you decide that your brand needed custom packaging?
A: When my community sees TERRA-TORY, I want them to think of a brand that bridges the gap between effective skincare and sustainability. I’m proud that noissue has helped us to achieve that!
Q: Why did you choose noissue? How has noissue packaging helped your brand?
A: The real incentive for me was knowing that I can choose a region of my choice to plant a tree in with each order. It allowed me have branded packaging while also upholding the same core values that my brand has. It wasn’t a contradiction at all. So many brands talk about not using harmful chemicals and how they stay away from certain toxins, but they still use plastic bottles and containers. This means that those same customers aren’t able to be responsible with disposal or recycling properly. It makes zero sense to me! noissue has helped me by making it much easier to tell my story, and to keep my brand identity aligned with the end product: creating an effective and sustainable soap brand, TERRA-TORY.