Why Consider expanding your Product Range

If you’re someone who has a solid company, customer base, and a lot of orders that are repeating, that's great. 

But as you start to grow, gaining a larger audience, you need to meet the demands of these customers. 

At some point, while a lot of people may like one product, they may want something with some changes, such as less sugar, a desire for alternatives, and at this point, you may want to consider the product range expansion. 

Usually, this involves more SKUs, which means that you need to be mindful and strategic to keep the proliferation in check. 

But expanding the product range is really important, and here, we’ll go over why. 

Product Range, Product Mix, and Product line 

The right management of an SKU does involve making sure that you replenish, keep track of, and are able to rationalize the SKUs of a company, expanding the product range and line to create new lines and ranges. 

A product range is basically a bunch of variants of a specific category of products, whereas the product mix is considered the entire stock and types of products that some company offers. 

For example, product mix includes beauty products, hair care products, skincare, and body care products. 

A product range for hair care products is basically anything involving that, or maybe specific variants of this. 

A product line and product range are actually used in an interchangeable manner, but that’s actually not correct. 

Product line is used for variants of products, whereas a product range is a much broader type of product gamut, and may include products that are complementary. 

Hair care product ranges may involve the shampoos that address different concerns. A product line is for variants of one product, such as for specific hair types. 

Why Expanding the Product Ranges Mattes 

It’s actually really good for those that are growing. It can expand the average order value, as customers buy more and more products at once. 

This offers more chances for bundles and kits. When you increase this, you can also recommend products that are complementary to customers in order to create bundles that save costs. 

It also impacts the loyalty of products, as it lets you have more options, and they won’t want to go to competitors as much, and they’ll keep coming back to you, building the customer base, and increasing the lifetime value of the person. 

There are a few product range cons that come with this. 

The first thing, is the costs. It can be expensive to develop this, and you also need to focus on supplying and manufacturing costs, and any costs to market along with selling all of that to fulfill them. 

When they’re not executed in the correct way, it can definitely make things costlier than they should be. 

The second thing, is you have to realize not every product is going to be a winner. Sometimes, there are those that dind’t sell well, which impacts the investments, and it ca case larger inventory stock to stick around, and lower turnover of inventory, and it can impact the inventory to sales ratios, the days, sales inventory, and the like, and you may see lower revenue per unit, even though some some items are selling quite well.

Making sure that you rationalize the SKU is really important, as it helps to make sure that the items that don’t sell aren’t sticking around, and those that do are there for a bit too

What you Need to Make Retail Packaging Successful

With packaging becoming something incredibly critical for brands, especially when they battle the attention of customers and their shelf-space, it is something that is a tried and true strategy.  Here are a few things to make retail packaging better than before. 

Get the Shelf Space sorted 

You need to consider different retail elements when creating packaging that’s retail ready. 

It also means collaboration in order to assess the following: 

• Shelf space dimensions 

• Products that fit there 

• Sales and replenishment rates 

Once you have this, you can design it even better. 

Consider the Customer Experience 

You want to also make sure that your retail ready packaging hits on all features that customers want. 

They include: 

• Simple to get and use 

• Simple to see 

So in order to make this catch the eye, you need it to be simple enough that customers will be able to work with this, without it being too complicated. It boosts the customer experience by avoiding edges and sharp corners. 

It also does imply that once the products get removed from the shelf, you also can consider the packaging that’s retail ready as it appears there. consider taking advantage of the brand messaging, so it’s shown prominently and clearly. High definition printing ensures that these products stand out, especially from others. 

Be Sustainable 

You should also make sure that it stands out in a manner of sustainability.  You can do this in simple ways, such as lowering the thickness of this material, thereby reducing your carbon footprint.  You also should use more eco-friendly items that will help you with standing out. This includes boxes that are recycled. 

But you do need to make sure that you test all seals of packaging, in order to make sure that this maintains the weight of products. There are many different ways to test this out, and when you conduct tests, you can secure the packaging so it stands the tests of time. 

Why this matters 

All of this may seem like it doesn’t really matter, but the truth is, it does. 

Packaging is the initial connection one person’s packaging and products have with buyers. It’s imperative that the packaging convinces them to try out these products. 

According to recent studies of retail, over 70% of buyers do admit that the influence of design on packaging does matter. 

That’s a lot of buyers that businesses are able to influence through the design of packaging alone. Over 30% of those that reported also see good surges in sales and improve packaging design. 

It’s also good for other reasons, so optimal packaging is vital. Packaging also does contribute to the loyalty of customers, so that they can return products because of their packaging. Any packaging that’s easy to recycle also does drive customer purchases. They’ll come back if they can do that. Over 60% of customers say that they like sustainable packaging, including corrugated paper and paper packaging items. This is good as well for stopping the usage of plastic forms of packaging. 

Retail ready forms of packaging do aid in the brand establishment of positive imagery and legitimacy. Customers can overlook products where packaging fails to show the items and the quality of this. it does impact your credibility. 

People want labeling that’s honest, and many people will not buy if they get packaging that is misleading, not transparent, and isn’t honest about what’s inside. So yes, it is important. 

If nothing else, make sure you’ve got your packaging ready for retail, in order to ensure great success in the long run.