5 Benefits of Digital Printing in Retail Packaging & Displays

You can only make a first impression once, so you should ensure it's the best you can. When it comes to the first impression formed by customers browsing for various products on store shelves, your retail packaging or displays are that first impression.

But packaging alone isn't enough to get the job done. If you truly want to create highly efficient packaging, offer endless opportunities for customization, and get to market quickly, digital printing is how you do it.

1. Efficiency

One of the significant advantages that digital printing brings is efficiency. Because the entire process is handled via computers, no tooling is required. Almost nothing in the way of setup is needed, either.

Packaging created with digital printing has far faster lead times than those made with other conventional techniques. This efficiency is a major asset for a brand — they can order what they need, when they need it, in the exact quantity they require. With digital printing, the days of having to store out-of-date packaging or displays are over, which can help significantly reduce overhead costs (and material waste!).

2. Customization

Likewise, because the digital printing process is so flexible, it offers a virtually endless number of chances to fully customize retail packaging and displays to cater to the needs of your exact audience. The messaging on product packaging can be updated quickly, allowing businesses to take advantage of seasonal marketing campaigns or changes to consumer behavior. Packaging and displays can even have different art for each new production run if you choose.

Each individual package can be customized with a brand's logos and specific product information, for example. In certain circumstances, you can even add a customer's name to product packaging (like if you were going to a trade show or other promotional event). Personalization, coupled with the ability to add individualized art, truly creates an experience for the customer that they are unlikely to find anywhere else.

3. Speed

For most organizations, the most significant benefit of digital printing for retail packaging and displays comes from how quickly these items can get onto store shelves. Once the overall concept for an asset has been designed, the digital printing process allows for lightning-fast production of packaging and displays. They can be in stores in a fraction of the time it would typically take with alternative methods.

4. Personalization

A prime example of effective personalization in action comes from the subscription box — something in which the Bay Cities team has a lot of experience. Subscription boxes are already supposed to be a highly customized experience, offering products that have been tailor-made for the customers in question. When the packaging is personalized, it creates a far more exciting and engaging experience on behalf of the customer. Honestly, it's an opportunity to extend the concept of subscription boxes as far as it will go, creating a stable new recurring revenue stream.

5. Rich Graphics

Of course, digital printing has more major benefits, with color accuracy among them. Anyone who has previously dealt with packaging or displays knows the disappointment of seeing a finished product with poor color reproduction, to the point where that asset barely resembles the one you spent so much time and effort designing.

With digital printing, this is a concern of the past. You can easily adjust colors on the fly; what you see on a computer will resemble what you see in real life with stunning accuracy. Colors can easily be changed during the design process to fit any branding requirements you may have.

All these benefits come together to accomplish the most important goal: creating a better experience for customers who are shopping for products like yours. Not only will you capture their attention, but you'll also be able to keep it. At that point, you'll be able to let the quality of your products speak for itself.

At Bay Cities, we leverage digital printing to provide brands with more than rich designs and colors on their packaging and displays. We also use variable data printing to achieve personalization on items like promotional and subscription boxes. It’s not just about designing a pretty box or display — it’s about connecting with the customer through a unique, on-brand experience. See how we’ve delivered this experience with brands like ella + mila and Smartypants through our case studies.