No longer are our store shelves 3D. Today they are 2D. However, much of the packaging out there today has not been designed to stand out on a smartphone, tablet or computer screen.
Future branding: The digital store shelf
How to build a brand in the digital store shelf
The boom in online shopping, or e-commerce, and other digital shopping platforms, means that we need to rethink the way we consider and design our packaging. Carrefour won this year’s webstore of the year award, Ulabox is showing 250% year on year growth, new apps like Deliverry will do your shopping for you and deliver within one hour and the Caprabo online supermarket gets some 66,000 hits a month. All of which offers unequivocal evidence that the digital sales of FMCG are on the up and up and that it will not be too long until online sales represent a considerable part of the earnings of many companies.
A 2D store shelf is far more accessible, it is there waiting for you to shop 24/7. It is personalised in accordance with your shopping history and is far faster and more convenient since you no longer need to go to the store nor line up to pay. In fact, there have even been successful experiments which have brought the store shelf to places of common transit, like Metro stations, so that people can shop without wasting a single precious minute of their daily routine.
At Callao Metro Station in Madrid, Danone products were sold using QR codes. In Barcelona, QR codes are being implemented to enable people to shop through the Pickbe platform.
Another of the great things about a 2D store shelf is the ability to add extra information on your products, given that you are no longer limited by the space on the facing or backpack, and can offer a full explanation of all product features.
And, without a doubt, this means we need to take a fresh look at our current packaging. No longer can we think of packaging as a way to construct the brand, communicate and compel in the five seconds during which it is looked at on the physical store shelf. We need to rethink the whole process and design of our packaging to make it capable of performing equally well on the online store shelf. This means simplifying it and eliminating secondary information from the facing.
