Family Economics And Consumer Education 3 (2+1)

Lesson 30 :Labelling and packaging

Attributes of a Good Package

A well designed and attractive package is “shelf-salesman” for the retailer, for the package design itself works as a brand. The package must have informative labeling. The headliner, illustrations, guidelines and selling points on the package must be clear at a glance. Visibility of the product in the package helps to sell the product better. Hence glass, cellophane and plastic packages have become very popular.
A good package must be:

1. Protect the contents: It must resist soiling it must prevent spoilage during selling period.
2. Meet retailer requirements: It must attract attention. It must look like a fast seller. It must be convenient to stock and display.
3. Meet consumer requirements: It must look clean and sanitary. It must minimize the buyers time.
4. It must meet trade characters: It must build confidence. It must be convenient to stock and display.
5. Must be easily identifiable: Food packages must be designed in a special manner as “the housewife is interested in the functional performance of the package. The qualities in which a housewife is interested in packaging are:
6. It should be easy to open
7. It should afford convenience and sanitation in storage
8. Container should be reusable
9. Package should make purchasing easier and faster.

Types of Packages:

1. Consumer package: It is one which holds the required volume of a product for ultimate consumption and is within the means of a buying household. In other words the consumer has the option to purchase the pack size over a length of time and which does not involve extra investment during that period.
2. A bulk package: is its opposite. It is either for the industrial consumer’s use example: Steel drums for paint for loose dispensing. The consumer package itself vary, often requires an outside package in which it is transported and which is sometimes referred to as a transit package or an outer container.
3. An Industrial Package: Can either describe a bulk package or the package for durable consumer goods. These are the basic package types although many subdivisions can be listed. Example: strip package, multiple package etc which can all be broadly listed under these basic headings.
4. Dual use package: Is one which has a secondary usefulness after its contents have been consumed. Drinking glasses, boxes of jewellery or cigarettes, waste baskets, refrigerator, dishes, cloth from flour and feed sucks are the example.

Package Forms
Packages may be in the form of tin plate cans or cardboard container, polythene bags, paper or cloth or gunny bags, wooden boxes, squeeze bottles, collapsible tubes, aerosol cans, aluminum foils, clear film wrappings, plastic container etc flavors and qualities.
Packages are often selected on primitive grounds of cost, international practice, type of the product, quality of product, conditions of display, likely consumer appeal. Without regard to the fact that the true economics of packaging lie in the total packaging operation, filling, sealing, other packaging, storing, handling and distribution.
Package Material:
A wide variety of packaging material is used having regard to the availability. Possible shortages, competition, economy, transport, worthiness and shelf life in every conceivable environmental hazard for stated period. The more common packaging material metal, glass, wood, paper cardboard, plastic, cloth, jute and cellophane.
Packaging involves simultaneously selection as well as manufacture, filling and handling of packages, selection is of course guided by the dictates of the 3 processes of package manufacture. Filling and handling which have to be combined with the marketing viz, knowledge of the consumer or the uses, the shelf life described the conditions of retail outlet. Packaging should be regarded as a basic essential requirement for a manufactured product and not arising incidentally in the course of transportation and marketing. All that will become meaningless unless the package is designed to carry on the good work in the long and unpredictable journey from the factory to the ultimate consumer.
Changes in packaging
The manufacturer may make a change in packaging for 2 purposes

1. To arrest decrease in sales
2. To expand a market by attracting new groups of customers.

He may also decide to correct a bad feature in the existing package such as the container may leak after being opened or it may not be sufficiently airtight. Some firms may change their packaging to aid its promotional programmes. The new package may be used as a major appeal in the advertising copy or the old package may be modified because they do not show up well in advertisements.
Deceptive packaging:
In most cases, when the package is not transparent, the consumer is unable to examine the product. He is unable to judge the product in terms of its size, shape, contents etc. the problem of a consumer increases when the weight of the packaging material or the container is also added to the weight of the product or contents. This means that the consumer pays more/or less contents. This practice is invariably seen in the sale of burfies, gulab jamuns. Rasgullas,etc. During festival seasons when the shops are arrowed or when the demand is more for these items.
In that items the container used for packaging products are bigger, than their net contents. The volume or the size of the package is made big to make the consumer realize that he is getting more for the money he pays. Only after the packing is removed, the consumer realizes that the size of commodity is half the size of its air-filled package. This is especially true in case of soaps, toothpaste, facial creams etc. Another way by which the consumers are cheated is the supply of reduced quality of net contents without changing the size of the package or the price of the goods. Consumers buy these products out of habit and assume that they are supplied in the same amount of goods when they buy the same size of packed goods.
The manufactures also misguide the consumers when they supply goods in a package with prints like “net weight 100 grams when packed”. They use these to escape prosecution when supplying lesser quantities of commodities because some goods may lose weight during storage, transportation etc. but consumer assumes that he is getting more for the money without realizing that he is being cheated in terms of quantity.