Wrapping up the Purchase

Exchanging the visitor’s money for an item from your “store” is one of the most exciting of business marketing promotions. The visitor has purchased a gift.

Is it always a gift? Yes! It is always a gift. It could be a gift for someone who is not there or it could be a gift for the buyer himself or herself.

Every stage of the purchasing experience is part of your business marketing promotion. 

Make the purchase look like a gift

and not like a bargain from a garage sale –

where it is completely acceptable to recycle used plastic bags and the like. It is definitely okay to be environmentally friendly…BUT make your packaging match your brand. Make it classy and impressive. Let it capture an audience when it leaves your store. That does not mean that the wrapper or container should be loud or outlandishly conspicuous. Just render it capable of reaching out for attention.

If the packaging matches the concept for your retail focus, it creates its own special element of advertising for you. For instance, I have seen something as ordinary as a plain brown paper lunch bag dressed up to make an impression. It was embellished on one side with a hand-made ink-pad-type stamp and tied shut with a colour-matched piece of shoe-lace-like paper cord. This creative packaging was designed to hold smaller purchases from a particular handicraft store. Do you agree that it was a match?    

You may even want to have stick-on labels printed up with your business name and logo on them to apply to otherwise no-name bags. The exterior labels help you advertise your business.

Clear, see-through packaging has obvious advantages. So does wrapping that is tape-secured. Customers who bring their own carry bags reduce your options for advertising outwardly but if, you have created a uniqueness that makes the customer feel special, rest-assured that this customer will be showing off the wrapping. If you are shipping items from your online store, how can you balance the need to have the shipment arrive intact and yet have the item inside wrapped memorably?

Reward your customers for choosing to buy now. Create some added value to the sale. You may invite the customer to print off a discount coupon from your web site to apply to their next purchase. Do you have a promo item to include? Always include a business card.    

A purchase, in my opinion,

        is a very special form of gifting.

What if your customers could feel like their purchase is a gift unto themselves by virtue of the packaging of the gift? Could it attract more potential buyers to you?

Say “Thank you.” It’s simple, yet effective. It helps the customer feel that doing business with you was important to you. Saying thank you is an important part of helping build a relationship with a customer. What a nice way to show appreciation for the sale! 

Donna Dahl is the author of Tradeshows: Building Your Thirty-Second Business. This article is an excerpted and adapted from the book. Donna offers consulting services designed to build your unique tradeshow presence. To contact her or to learn more, visit www.makoye.com