From excessive packaging to moderate packaging

Packaging is the face of a commodity. It is the medium between the consumer and the commodity. It is also a bridge for consumers to understand the commodity. Good packaging design has extraordinary charisma, which allows consumers to create an image of the company’s products while promoting the image of the company’s products. The purpose of sales and promotion of corporate profits.

More than 20 years ago, the phrase "first-class products, second-class packaging, and third-class prices" was once a true portrayal of China's merchandise trade. Since the reform and opening up, companies have begun to pay attention to the packaging of goods and have achieved significant economic benefits. However, in recent years, in order to pursue higher interests, some businesses have over-convinced that packaging's promotional functions, excessively increase the added value of goods regardless of the interests of consumers, resulting in an imbalance in the value of packaging and content, resulting in China's packaging industry from The old problem of "insufficient packaging" gradually emerged and then went to the other extreme - into the quagmire of "excessive packaging." How to make the enterprise get rid of the business idea of ​​“selling a piece of leather” and embark on a benign track has aroused widespread concern in the society.

First, the definition of excessive packaging

1. Overpacking concept. Excessive packaging is a kind of functional and over-valued commodity packaging. Its performance is the consumption of excessive materials, excessive bulk, high-grade materials, luxury decoration and other packaging products, so that it exceeds the functional requirements of product protection and beautification.

2. Excessive packaging manifestations. Excessive and blundering in the packaging volume; there is exaggeration and fraud in the nature of the package. The phenomenon of excessive packaging is particularly prominent in health products, wine, tea, festive foods, and daily cosmetics.

3. Overpacking hazards.

1) The increase in packaging costs will damage the interests of consumers. Because overpacking will inevitably lead to an increase in packaging costs, the cost of overpacking will eventually be passed on to consumers. For example, the value of a few moon cakes is worth hundreds or thousands of yuan. The value of its packaging far exceeds the value of the moon cake itself, and the value of this exquisite packaging has to be paid by consumers.

2) Wasting resources and polluting the environment. According to relevant statistics, only from mooncake production enterprises, for every 100,000 boxes of moon cakes produced, packaging supplies will need to be felled by 4 to 6 trees with a diameter of 10 cm or more. The country’s annual production of more than 100 million boxes of moon cakes means that One Mid-Autumn Festival is to "eat" more than 6,000 trees. According to the report, only 500 million tons of rubbish produced in Shanghai each year has at least 1/4 of the packaging of various commodities, most of which are wastes caused by excessive overpacking.

(3) The cost burden of large companies and the stagnation of capital turnover caused losses. Instead of relying on product quality to dominate the market, but relying on product packaging to please consumers, this approach may begin to produce certain benefits, but after consumers are deceived, there will be companies that refuse to purchase over-packaged products. The result of the products brought to the company is the decline in profits.

(4) Product cost performance imbalance. The so-called price/performance ratio is the ratio of the product's performance to the price, which represents the performance of the product unit price. If R stands for cost performance, F stands for performance, and P stands for price, then R = F/P. In general, the higher the cost-effectiveness of a product, the more affordable the product. On the other hand, over-packaged products have not improved their basic performance, but due to over-packaging, production costs have risen, which in turn has led to price increases, and ultimately the price/performance ratio of the product.

Second, the definition of moderate packaging

Moderate packaging refers to reasonable and appropriate packaging. The purpose of packaging the goods is to protect the goods from damage and to facilitate transportation, storage, and consumer portability. On this basis, proper packaging can increase the added value of products, increase the “selling point”, and can play a broad role in advertising. , And then expand sales, increase corporate profits. Therefore, moderate packaging is not only necessary but also beneficial.

How to measure the standard of moderate packaging, although the country has no clear provisions in this regard, but enterprises in the packaging design of goods, "moderation" should not only focus on the use of packaging materials, but also consider the manufacturing process of packaging materials and products Neutralize the potential harm to the environment after discarding, and how easy it is to recycle and use packaging waste.

The author believes that from the perspective of packaging costs, under the premise of ensuring that the basic packaging effectively protects the goods, the moderately-packed packaging cost should be the lowest cost for the entire life cycle of the packaging. The total life cycle cost refers to the total cost of the cycle from planning, research and development, production to customer use, and retirement processing that the product has formed through to extinction. Specifically, it includes two parts. The first is the producer cost, which refers to the cost incurred by the producer within the company and related parties, specifically the cost in product planning, R&D, design, production, marketing, and logistics; and second, the cost of the consumer. , that is, the cost of use after the purchase of the consumer and the disposal cost. In order to maintain competitiveness in the market and increase market share, enterprises must produce according to the needs of consumers, so that consumers can obtain products with satisfactory quality and prices, and at the same time use the cost of products (including packaging and contents). The lowest cost of scrapping. For this reason, to achieve a moderate degree of packaging, companies strive to use as few packaging materials as possible to ensure that the cost of packaging is economical. Therefore, any type of excessive packaging and inadequate packaging should strive to avoid it.

From the point of view of some foreign packaging costs, Japan stipulates that packaging costs must not exceed 15% of the product's pricing; US packaging costs should be limited to 20% in product costs, and 9% in the United Kingdom. Therefore, our country's production companies can also refer to such standards and moderately package their own products.

Third, the company's spontaneous action is appropriate packaging

1. Control packaging costs. When designing packaging costs, an enterprise should take into account the disposal cost of the product and make a predictive analysis of the total cost-benefit of the product in order to accurately determine whether it is profitable to produce the product and bring it to market. In each stage of the product life cycle, the product characteristics determined in the R&D and design stage largely determine the costs of the other stages of the product, leading to the related cost-locked-in-cost. According to estimates, the product cost that can be determined in the R&D and design stage accounts for 75% to 90% of the total cost. This shows that after the characteristics of the product in the R&D design stage have been determined, there is little room for product cost readjustment. Therefore, controlling excessive packaging from the source of product design should be promoted in enterprises.

2. Self-produced and effective. In order to ensure the price of product packaging and to facilitate the control of the cost of packaging, some of the strong companies will generally set up their own packaging design department, so that self-produced, one-step, in order to achieve reasonable reduction of packaging costs. For example, Sichuan Changhong Group attaches great importance to reducing the cost of packaging products, and basically controls the entire packaging cost to 2% to 5% of the total product cost. To this end, Changhong achieves its goals through the optimization of design, raw material procurement, and actual operations in production. Changhong Electric adopts a self-produced and self-packaged form to maximize the reasonable allocation of resources, which not only reduces packaging costs, but also helps to enhance the “Changhong” brand and image. Strong manufacturing companies can learn from this self-produced method.

3. Use waste materials to tap new highlights of reduced packaging costs. Oaks took waste corrugated cardboard, corner board, etc. through the post-processing (mainly for pasting, cutting and forming) to make packing seats, packing liners, and jackets to replace EPS foam seats, with low cost and excellent results. Features become a new bright spot to reduce packaging costs. Manufacturers should also consider adopting the packaging of the company's waste-producing products, and also consider the issue of recycling of packaging materials.

4. Establish strategic alliances with packaging design companies for a win-win situation. Through cooperation, manufacturers can rely on the packaging design company's strength in packaging from design, R&D to production, etc., eliminating the need to set up a packaging R&D department for itself, and consuming manpower, material resources, and financial resources; for packaging design companies, It can also obtain effective funds from the production enterprises and increase their economic strength. If the company's product packaging design technology is weak, this strategy can be used to use the packaging design company's new materials, new technologies to achieve the purpose of reducing packaging costs.

Fourth, social action encourages moderate packaging

1. Pass legislation to limit excessive packaging. Foreign developed countries all have professional "Packaging Law", and most of them limit the luxury packaging by imposing packaging fees. For example, the legislation in the United States and Canada stipulates that any one of the following circumstances is deceptive packaging: there are too many empty spaces in the packaging; the volume and height of the packaging and contents are too different; the packaging is unreasonably exaggerated; and not technically necessary. South Korea's over-packaging rule is that excessive packaging is an illegal act. If manufacturers do not reduce the packaging ratio and layers of products according to government regulations, they will be punished by up to 3 million won. In addition, Japan, Germany, and Australia all adopt legislation to restrict excessive packaging.

On March 20, 2005, the Shanghai Food Association, in conjunction with the other four associations, issued the “Measurement for Moderate Packaging of Mooncakes in Shanghai” on the issue of excessive packaging of moon cakes that are of general concern to consumers. This method is based on the appropriate materials, costs, and volume of moon cakes. Quality and other aspects have set specific standards and requirements. In addition, on September 5, 2005, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ) and the National Standards Committee issued the “National Standard for Compulsory Mooncakes” (GB19855-2005) to limit overpacking of mooncakes. At present, the China Packaging Industry Federation has drafted the “Packaging Law” and has submitted it to the relevant departments of the State Council for deliberation. It is hoped that the Ministry of Law will introduce the law as soon as possible, with clear legal provisions to restrict excessive product packaging problems, and regulate and constrain commodity packaging from quality, material, and volume.

2. Consumers change consumer attitudes. Establish a rational concept of consumption in the entire society, remember the story of “buying a beggar and returning beads” and avoid the consumption misunderstanding of “three pound shells of two pounds of bamboo shoots”. A civilized consumer shouldn't blindly climb the bucket to get rich. This requires reaching a broad consensus among consumers.

3. Advocate the idea of ​​saving resources. This requires the media to strengthen media publicity, increase consumers' ability to consciously boycott "excessive" and "fraudulent" packaging, and dispose of packaging materials indiscriminately, and assist related companies in recycling and waste utilization. At the same time, the government and relevant industry organizations have strengthened supervision and inspection efforts to provide services to enterprises in the recovery of packaging while promoting the reduction of “excessive” behavior.

Wen/Wang Xuemin Liu Limin

Source: China Packaging Industry