While not the global superpower in this area, the United State’s manufacturing industry is worth a staggering 2.3 trillion dollars. That dollar amount will continue to rise as more people push for re-shoring jobs.
Whether your products are manufactured domestically or abroad, a key component of just about any manufacturing workflow is product labelling. There are several reasons as to why this is the case, from health repercussions to ones of the legal variety.
If you’re unsure as to why product packaging accuracy is important, keep reading. Doing so could save your company from a world of headaches.
1. Faulty Product Packaging Leads to Death
Not all packaging inaccuracies cause serious harm. Depending on the industry you work in though, there is a chance that the impact errors might have could be deadly.
Take pharmaceuticals.
Product labelling that misstates the dosage someone should take based on their weight could lead to overdosing. That risk is why many people in the pharmaceutical manufacturing space work with partners to ensure their packaging’s obligation to accuracy is met.
For example, this quality control company can help pharmaceutical businesses reduce their error exposure.
2. Legal Exposure is Immense
You don’t have to be in an FDA-regulated line of business to still be susceptible to faulty packing risks. People that sell toys, for example, are exposed to serious losses as a result of bad product packaging.
Think about toys that come in a plastic encasing. That encasement is required to disclose suffocation risks. Not following that protocol, even if no one gets hurt, could lead to punitive action by local governments when the issue is brought to their attention by a guardian or advocacy group.
3. Recalls Are Inevitable
The moment product packaging issues are discovered that undermine consumer safety and/or regulatory outlines, in addition to dealing with the fallout we’ve already noted, product recalls will follow.
Recalling products is an expensive undertaking. You need to work with every seller affiliated with your company to ship back affected products. In addition, you’ll need to institute voluntary buybacks of products that are in consumer’s hands.
Depending on the volume of products you have in the market, that process can set a company back millions of dollars.
4. Licensure Could Be Pulled
This flawed packaging repercussion is attributed mostly to companies manufacturing in specialized markets like pharmaceuticals. If your company gets associated with repeat packaging issues that could have or did affect consumers, you may lose any licensure you have that enables you to work in your business niche.
Licenses for pharma/healthcare are particularly difficult to attain. Their loss can cause permanent corporate hardship that could easily give way to closure.
As an aside, licensure requirements for health vary from country to country and can be hard to keep track of. Our advice if you’re just starting in pharma-related practices is to read more about requirement variances. You might also consider hiring a local attorney.
5. Building an Informed Culture
All of the importance of having accurate product packing isn’t tied up in avoiding losses. Part of the reason why accurate packing is important is that putting out trusted information creates an informed population.
Take food packaging for example. By appropriately illustrating nutritional facts, manufacturers enable consumers to make informed eating choices. That can have a massive positive impact on consumer’s lives.
Enabling people to better or lessen their lives starts with information sharing. As a company, it’s your responsibility to feed that culture.
6. Better Branding
Trust is everything when it comes to branding. As a matter of fact, we challenge you to build a successful brand in any space that doesn’t earn its consumer’s trust.
Whether it be through providing high-quality products, corporate responsibility, or a mixture of the two, consumers believing in your brand is synonymous with success. So, by taking your responsibilities to accurate product packing seriously, you breathe life into your relationship with buyers.
Quality packaging also helps you differentiate yourself from counterfeit products that operate in your space. Seeing as how businesses lose 1.2 trillion dollars to counterfeits every year, that’s a benefit worth pursuing!
7. Happier Customers
What’s more important than a happy customer? To a business, not much.
What a lot of companies don’t appreciate is that a positive customer experience starts with quality packaging.
Packaging is an entry-point in the consumer journey. It catches consumer’s eyes with its leverage of design principles. It then lets consumers know what the product does and how it can help them live a better life.
Finally, product packaging shares important safety information with consumers, hitting home your brand’s willingness to exercise corporate responsibility.
When you maximize your packaging’s real estate and use it to communicate with consumers honestly, you’ll enjoy more sales and customers that can’t wait to do business with you again!
Product Labelling Matters for More Reasons Than We’ve Shared
If you’ve taken one core idea from this post, we hope it’s that product labelling matters. That’s true from a business perspective. It’s true from a consumer perspective. It’s even true from a social obligation perspective.
Know that the effects of good or poor product packaging reach beyond what we’ve had the time to disclose in this blog post. If you’d like to learn more, we suggest discussing your concerns with a local attorney. They can opine on the laws/benefits that most directly affect you and your business.
Feel free more of the business-focused content on our blog! Any one of our posts will stoke your intrigue surrounding several meaningful topics.