Almost every singe medium or large wholesale plastic shopping bags manufacturer will hand out a custom printed shopping bag with every purchase. For a practice to be used industry wide there has to be a reason behind it, and it isn’t as simple as another form of advertising.
Of course, advertising does play a large role. Every customer that walks out is expected to expose the image printed on their bag to at least 3 other people. This number really depends on the shopping district and the number of shoppers. In a high foot traffic area this number can jump to 10-15 people very easily. These are potential customers that now know your store is in the area, open, and other people are buying. ( this effect escalates when there are a large number of people walking around with your bag. “There Must be a good reason so many people have bought something from that store.”) If the image on the bag includes a promotion or sale you have just added a good incentive for people to go out of their way to find you.
When they do find your store they will have already picked up a piece of your image to begin forming a judgement. With a nice looking bag that backs up your brand you have already managed to promote the idea that the business is established, doing well, has quality merchandise and values the customer. This is BEFORE they have walked in the door. It’s amazing how important a persons mindset is when they enter a business and how likely they are to make a purchase.
You want customers coming back, right? So you need to keep a good and lasting impression. Hey, shopping bags help with that too. Imagine that…..
Just think of how you feel when walking out of a store like Victoria’s Secret with their trademark two tone pink shopping bag. You feel confident about that purchase. There is something comforting about the quality of the packaging.
Compare that to the thought of walking out of a store with the $100 of goods you just purchased that were tossed into a cheap white plastic t-shirt bag. Not the same feeling, is it? The most interesting part is the effect on product returns.
After purchasing a product a customer has to decide again at some point if it was a good purchase. They may have the “excitement” of a buying a new, let’s say shirt. When leaving the store they probably feel good about their decision. Over the next few hours that opinion may change. There could be a few other shirts they’ve seen that they also liked, they could determine they really didn’t have that much money to spend, maybe they didn’t find anything to go with it. This customer will have to be re-sold on the value of their item.
One of the only tools the retailer has at this point is the packaging. A crumpled up shirt in a plastic sack just isn’t as appealing as it was hanging up in the store. It no longer is worth as much as they paid for it. There is a good chance it will be returned. A nicely folded shirt in white tissue in a nice shopping bag brings back the good experiences during the purchase. It could be the nice salesperson or how the shirt looked on the rack that originally was so great. They have just been re-sold the item and are much less likely to return it.
Not only that, but they have just remembered good qualities of your business. The product is worth more in their mind.
They are much more willing to go out of their way to return. Perhaps more importantly, they are much more willing to tell others about their experience.
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