Think back to some of your favorite products from about 10 years ago. Did they survive the decade? Looking at them now, what would you attribute their survival to? Most likely, they’ve embraced changes and evolved to become more competitive.
Smart packaging is one of the solutions that consumer packaged goods (CPG) businesses need to embrace to remain competitive. Whether you’re looking for ways to elevate your CPG marketing or get durable goods off the shelf faster, this is something to consider. It leverages interactive technology to not only enhance supply chain efficiency but also to improve customer experiences and provide greater product visibility for sustainability efforts.
Here, we look at everything from why it’s a worthwhile investment to some smart packaging applications to get your creative juices flowing.
What is smart packaging?
Smart packaging is a means of adding functionality to typical packaging to improve the customer and vendor experience. This packaging solution allows consumers to access company and product information more easily, and companies gain greater control over their products and the customer journey.
We know what you’re thinking—traditional packaging also provides product information and still gives businesses control over their products. This is true. However, smart packaging enables brands to do more than just the basic things typical packaging does. It can help them:
- Minimize loss by providing accurate information about a product’s shelf life.
- Provide real-time information on products’ locations.
- Enhance inventory management.
- Elevate the customer journey by providing access to more information than standard packaging would hold.
There are various types of smart packaging technologies, each with its unique functionality. They include:
- Active packaging: It comes into direct contact with the product to increase its shelf life. Examples include antimicrobial agents, oxygen absorbers, silica gel, and dry ice inserts. You’ll mainly find this smart packaging solution in industries that handle food products and electronics, as they’re prone to degradation.
- Intelligent packaging: This solution goes beyond typical packaging to incorporate active communication tools, smart labels, and advanced sensors to provide real-time product information. The goal is to monitor everything from a product’s location to its vitals, including freshness, humidity, and tightness.
How does smart packaging work?
Smart packaging transforms traditional packaging from simple containment and product protection solutions to valuable sources of information by integrating advanced technologies such as:
- Embedded sensors: They help monitor vital product specifications, like temperature and freshness, to ensure they remain within safe parameters.
- RFID (Radio-frequency identification): Developed in the 1970s, this technology facilitates product tracking throughout the supply chain.
- NFC (Near-field communication): This technology transforms product packaging into a direct communication channel by providing access to product information and exclusive content—it’s typically short-range, as it requires you to maintain a distance of four centimeters or less to initiate access.
- QR (Quick Response) Codes: These are two-dimensional versions of the barcode that act as gateways between offline and online channels and can provide real-time product tracking information. You can link them to a wide range of content, including videos, PDFs, your contact information, coupons, and more!
- 2D Barcodes: These are part of the future of connected packaging. They’re a type of QR Code that contains a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) to help with product authentication as well as web links, which customers can scan with their smartphones to access product information.
Depending on your chosen technology, you can either print the solutions directly on product packaging or embed them during the manufacturing process. For example, if you select 2D Barcodes or QR Codes for product packaging, you can easily print them directly on your packaging without affecting their functionality. However, for RFID or NFC, embedding them on tags could offer greater reliability. But you can still print them if your budget doesn’t allow for embedding.
Benefits of investing in smart packaging
Smart packaging requires a greater investment than standard packaging. Are the additional costs worthwhile? Most definitely! Here’s why:
Efficiency
Want to get a better visual of your supply chain and the customer journey to improve efficiency? Smart packaging can do that for you.
For example, incorporating QR Code technology into your packaging can provide real-time scan data, showing you how customers engage with different types of content. This can help you identify what resonates with your target audience and facilitate well-informed decisions. Through the scan data, you can also see how products move through the supply chain (you get scan data by location), and as such, you can identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies in your logistics.
Further, with technologies like sensors, you can directly assess a product’s condition remotely. This can save you time and resources by eliminating the need to inspect each product independently.
Customer satisfaction
Modern customers put a lot of weight on their experiences when determining whether to stay loyal to their brand—63% of American consumers are willing to leave a brand because of poor experiences. So, as you focus on product quality, also focus on experiences to promote customer satisfaction.
Smart packaging can help. With solutions like 2D Barcodes, customers can seamlessly access a wide range of vital product information with their smartphones, enhancing their experiences and, consequently, satisfaction.
The good news is that there’s no shortage of ways to use smart packaging solutions to elevate experiences—you can use them to provide features like product authenticity verification, usage instructions, personalized marketing, and anything else that may make the customer journey a little bit easier and more convenient.
Sustainability
If you’re looking for ways to appeal to eco-conscious consumers, smart packaging can help. Solutions like sensors help monitor environmental conditions and product freshness, which can help you ensure products are consumed before they spoil.
Further, 2D Barcodes and QR Codes allow you to provide a world of product information without using too much paper in your packaging—you simply need to link them to your desired content. Minimizing paper usage can help your sustainability cause.
Smart packaging can also promote sustainability by facilitating efficient product lifecycle assessment. You can get data on your products’ movements from the production to the disposal stage, allowing you to assess your environmental impact and optimize everything from logistics to disposal to lessen it.
Product safety
Businesses in industries like pharmaceuticals and food/beverage must exercise great caution to ensure product safety and prevent legal repercussions. As you can probably already guess, smart packaging can help!
You can use time temperature indicators to determine if products are exposed to conditions that make them unsafe, authentication codes to allow vendors and customers to confirm products’ legitimacy before using them, tamper-evident seals to prevent product substitution, and track and trace packaging to monitor product movement throughout the supply chain to ensure no one tampers with them.
Practical applications of smart packaging based on industry
Can your business benefit from smart packaging? Read on to find out if and how you can leverage smart packaging in your industry:
Retail
If you’re in retail, smart packaging can improve inventory management, reduce theft, and enhance customer engagement. For example, if you have multiple store locations, you can use RFID tags to track items as well as get a visual of your inventory levels to prevent unexpected stockouts.
You can also use retail QR Codes to direct customers to product information, promotions, and if you really want to wow them, augmented reality (AR) experiences like virtual makeup try-ons (if you’re in cosmetics retail). The beauty of using these retail solutions is that they not only enhance customer experiences but also provide real-time data so you can see which offerings resonate with your customers.
Consumer packaged goods (CPG)
Leveraging smart packaging can provide numerous benefits for CPG companies, such as improved supply chain visibility, extended shelf life, and better product tracking. Its ability to provide data as products move from production to retail can help you determine the risk of product spoilage, identify hurdles in the supply chain, and ensure quality control, leading to reduced waste and increased efficiency.
You can leverage features like QR Codes for location scan data if your products are crossing cities or countries, sensor technology to track products’ conditions, and RFID tags to enable your supply chain partners to verify products’ genuineness. The possibilities are endless!
Hospitality
Smart packaging technology can enhance operational efficiency in hotel supply chains by allowing them to track their supplies. It can also help them improve guest experiences by ensuring the authenticity of high-end products as well as providing easy access to hotel resources.
And, with data from hospitality solutions like QR Codes, they can identify what guests like, facilitating personalized amenities and offers. If this sounds like something that might interest you, print the solutions on the packaging of commonly used hotel amenities like soaps, shampoos, and conditioners. Guests are likely to scan the codes of products they’re interested in, showing you what’s popular in your establishment. This way, you can use the QR Code data to inform future purchases to ensure a positive customer experience
Technology
Businesses in the technology sector are increasingly turning to smart packaging systems to improve user experiences. They use tech solutions like NFC and RFID tags to protect and authenticate high-value products, QR Codes to provide user instructions, and integrated return labels to enable easy product returns.
Some also integrate the solutions with other digital experiences, such as unboxings and demonstrations, to help customers effectively leverage their chosen products.
Maximize your smart packaging strategy with Bitly
The benefits of smart packaging in our convenience-driven world can’t possibly be overstated. It provides easy access to a wide range of information, like product usage instructions, conditions, and authenticity, which not only helps with supply chain visibility but also enhances customer satisfaction.
With Bitly’s QR Codes and 2D Barcodes, you can enhance your smart packaging efforts to promote efficiency, customer satisfaction, and product knowledge. Through the Bitly Connections Platform, you get real-time scan data, which can help you identify what’s working and what’s not for continuous improvements.
Get started with Bitly today for reliable QR Codes and 2D Barcodes for smart packaging, as well as actionable insights to help optimize your efforts!