It is hard to compete with the retail giants on price, when you are running your own independent retail store. These giants sell convenience and perhaps don’t put as much thought into their packaging supplies as they should. Customers like to feel special, and this is where many retail giants will fail and independent retailers can fill the void. The more things you can do to make a customer feel special, the more customers you will get and one way you can do this, is through your retail packaging.

Where the retail giants give their customers cheap plastic shopping bags, or paper shopping bags, you could go the extra mile and give your customer premium packaging and not just cheap shopping bags. Packaging is a great and affordable way to do something extra for your customers. You can find wholesale shopping bags and packaging available at great prices through a number of retail providers. If you gift wrap your goods, you are giving your customers something they don’t get at any old store.

Just imagine the scene, a stressed out husband is buying an anniversary present at the last minute, and you offer beautiful jewelry boxes as standard packaging, that husband is going to love you and remember to come back another time. Also independent retailers offer a much more pleasant shopping experience without all the crowds, hustle and bustle of a retail giant.

Of course, Christmas is the time to offer packaging gift boxes, but people have birthdays, weddings and anniversaries all year around, so keeping a stock of jewelry gift boxes, premium retail shopping bags, tissue paper and tape guns to wrap up each purchase nicely is recommended.

Even if people buy things for themselves, they appreciate the gift wrapping service for themselves, and unwrapping their ‘gift’, when they get home. By offering this service when it’s not Christmas, they are more likely to visit when it’s Christmas too, as they know of the service you offer and it’s convenient to get all your presents wrapped up, ready to give.

If you want to add gift packaging as service in your independent retail store, here are some more considerations:

• If you have custom made paper gift bags with handles, people like to keep these bags. They may use them on a daily basis to carry a lunchbox to work (instead of paper lunch bags), this is advertising your shop, or they may use it as gift packaging when giving a present.
• Another way that your paper shopping bags are often seen by other people is when people shop at other shops, they may like to put their shopping into your nice premium paper bags (or plastic shopping bags), and so people think they have been shopping at your store. There is nothing like this kind of advertising, except maybe word of mouth marketing.
• Once you do really a good job of packaging your first few visitors’ gifts, you can expect word of mouth marketing to kick in, especially if you do it with a friendly smile.
• Go through your inventory and decide what size packaging gift boxes you will need, or jewelry boxes if that’s relevant to your business, and also what paper carrier bags, or plastic shopping bags you need. You could also consider white paper lunch bags, or brown paper bags for little items to go into, perhaps before wrapping up the goods in nice tissue paper to give that extra edge.

Gift packaging is one easy way to differentiate your store from the competition and stand out from the crowd. Many people still prefer the personable approach and not the masses approach that the retail giants have. Good packaging is certainly one viable option you could try to go that extra mile to impress customers, to keep them coming back.