Many customers are used to seeing their roast coffee offered in bags, pouches, or tins in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours.
That said, in recent years, the popularity of custom-printed coffee boxes has soared. Boxes offer coffee roasters an alternative way to present their product and can often provide more flexibility in design compared to classic coffee pouches and bags.
Commonly, custom-printed boxes are used for coffee subscriptions. They allow roasters or coffee shops to bundle a variety of coffees together in a custom-designed box that can be shipped easily.
However, roasters are seeing the marketing potential behind custom-printed coffee boxes, and have expanded the packaging across their range. Some, for instance, use boxes to highlight limited edition coffee offerings to heighten the sense of luxury and exclusivity.
Read on to discover how custom-printed coffee boxes can help boost brand awareness and sales.
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The growing popularity of custom-printed coffee boxes
Consumers have purchased subscriptions for items such as magazines and music for years.
That said, subscriptions have become increasingly popular in recent years, with the ecommerce market growing by more than 100% between 2013 and 2018.
As a result, more specialty coffee roasters are offering subscription-based models to customers as an innovative way of selling their coffee.
It is a convenient way for consumers to receive coffee regularly and provides them with an opportunity to experiment with new flavours and origins.
Coffee subscriptions increased in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic when social restrictions and lockdowns forced consumers to shop online.
American coffee chain Peet’s Coffee experienced a 70% leap in subscription orders in the 12 months to May 2020, while Beanbox, a subscription-only coffee service, saw a four-fold increase in sales during the first half of 2020.
The trend of using custom-printed coffee boxes has expanded to include limited edition offerings, blind tasting boxes, and gift bundles. These offerings allow roasters to group various coffee origins together, alongside tasting cards or brewing equipment.
This allows them to custom-create coffee bundles for discerning markets, such as those who have just entered the specialty coffee scene, and those who have their feet firmly stuck in the industry.
Benefits of offering custom-printed coffee boxes
Investing in custom-printed coffee boxes can benefit roasters and coffee shops in several ways.
For example, it can help increase brand perception and differentiate a product from the competition.
Unique, eye-catching coffee boxes can help grab a consumer’s attention and showcase the brand’s personality within seconds.
More so, custom-printed boxes are an effective way to increase the perceived value of certain coffees.
For instance, a luxurious custom-printed box can reflect the value attributed to limited edition offerings, and often goes hand-in-hand with marketing the product.
Custom-printed coffee boxes also provide roasters with more space on which to include information on their brand’s “story” and the coffee’s provenance, helping to connect with customers on a deeper level.
Additionally, coffee boxes can generate more revenue for roasters, as recent research shows one-third of consumer purchase choices are based on packaging design.
By choosing a sophisticated design, roasters can increase the perceived value of the products and, in turn, increase profit margins.
What to consider when designing custom-print coffee boxes
Before converting all coffee packaging into boxes, roasters must determine the pros and cons it will have on the business.
If a roastery is dispatching hundreds of orders a day, preparing boxes may slow down operations. This preparation may include folding, packing, labelling, and sealing the boxes.
More so, they will have to assess how many staff members will be needed for packing in order to offset any potential disruptions during day-to-day operations.
Another important consideration is how the boxes will handle transit. While they may look incredible when they leave the roastery, they must arrive at the consumer in the same pristine condition.
Notably, the average ecommerce package is dropped 17 times on route. Therefore, roasters should ensure their coffee boxes are made from a durable, yet sustainable material, such as recycled cardboard.
Important to note is the brand’s colour palette should remain consistent across all packaging. This can help boost brand awareness and help prevent customers from mistaking it for a counterfeit product.
Numerous academic studies reveal it is essential that a brand’s colours support the personality they want to portray, as brands can quickly become associated with specific colours.
For instance, the golden arches of fast-food giant McDonald’s are instantly recognisable anywhere in the world, as is the bright red colour of the soft drink brand Coca Cola.
Brand consistency is a pillar of their marketing success and should be considered when designing coffee boxes.
Essentially, the more opportunities a roaster creates for brand recognition among customers, the more memorable their experience will be.
Custom-printed coffee boxes can be one of the most effective ways of boosting a brand and reaching new corners of the market, as well as helping to increase customer loyalty.
The team at MTPak Coffee has expanded its range of sustainable, 100% recyclable coffee packaging to include custom-print coffee boxes.
Made from 100% recycled cardboard, our coffee boxes can be fully customised to accurately reflect your brand, as well as your coffee’s characteristics.
Using our innovative digital printing technology, our design team is able able to custom-print on each side of the coffee box.
We can help you turn your coffee boxes into effective advertising tools that will boost your brand’s perception and help you stand out from the crowd.
In addition to our custom-print coffee boxes, roasters can choose from renewable materials such as kraft paper, rice paper, or multilayer LDPE packaging with an environmentally friendly PLA lining, all of which minimise waste and contribute to a circular economy.
MTPak Coffee offers our clients a quick turnaround time of 40-hours and 24-hour shipping time.
We also offer low minimum order quantities (MOQs) to micro-roasters who are looking to remain agile while showcasing brand identity and a commitment to the environment.
