Story 1. Hone Packaging
Packaging/
The product around the product
Packaging is a critical part of the product experience. How the packaging is constructed and presents the product is often one of the customers first interactions with the brand and sets the tone. But it also performs a number of unseen functions before it gets to the customer; Protecting the product during storage and transport, and trying to be environmentally minimal.
As a small brand packaging involves many trade-offs but also provides a degree of freedom. Low volumes give the opportunity to create a unique or personal experience that a bigger brand might struggle to sustain. In the same breath those low volumes mean a small brand like Hone is also likely to encounter higher costs restrictions and less access to supply chain options when trying to create a great sustainable experience. Some of the more affordable options have undesirable qualities which don’t reflect our brand goals of quality, thoughtful products. Balancing premium quality and environmental goals is certainly a challenge
For our razor packaging there are a number of important goals we wanted our packaging to meet. But the top 3 we considered most important were:
Protect and present the product - We ship our products internationally, so we wanted to be sure that it arrived in good condition, and that it provided a good first impression.
Use as little plastic as possible, No plastic is the goal. We aren’t just jumping on the band wagon here as this isn’t a new idea for Hone. Since starting we refused to use plastic in our packaging, and will continue to evaluate our options going forward.
Be as close to 100% recyclable as feasible. We believe the packaging isn’t the product, and peoples lives are full of objects. Hanging on to packaging out of guilt wasn’t a burden we wanted to pass on. So we wanted to make it is easy as we could to dispose of your razor packaging as responsibly as possible.
At first glance it might appear there are a couple of big things missing from this list. Many marketing or branding experts might have placed the un-boxing experience, brand identity, and differentiation from the competition in that list. They would likely cite the research into the emotional effects of packaging, and first impressions on brand and product perception. We agree these are important but we also consider these qualities baked into good messaging as a total, and shouldn’t hang only on a packaging solution. Looking broader at the current trends we didn’t feel these were the important drivers as they should be inherent in the total product, not simply how you ship it. The interaction with the product over time was our goal, not the throw away part around the product. We felt we should challenge ourselves to put some other issues as the top drivers for packaging solution as we believe that you can only emotionally connect with a product once the functional needs are met, so however good the packaging is, if it didn’t meet these 3 main criteria we didn’t feel it should wear the Hone logo.
1/ Protect
1/Protect the Product.
We believe our products can be for life if they are well looked after. In such a context the packaging is the merest blink of an eye in the product journey. We don’t want to see our razors kept in their boxes. As a functional item we think our razors are much more beautiful once they have been used. We didn’t feel the need to make the packaging try to upstage the razor in terms of experience.
For us the main purpose of the packaging is to protect the product and get it too the customer undamaged. Nothing worse than the product you have been patiently waiting for arriving damaged as it wasn’t packaged well enough for the journey, requiring a return. As we ship internationally this can have some real challenges; vibrations, crushes, and drops are to be expected on a international shipment. But we still wanted something sleek at the end of the day. We considered ‘double-boxing’ to protect our primary packaging, but felt this would just be compensating for poorly thought out packaging solution. Shipping air isn’t efficient.
The solution; We proposed a stacked and laminated CNC-knife cut cardboard insert to our packaging supplier. This had the advantage for us over a more traditional collapsible or folded insert because it provided a lot of rigidity and a solid buffer before an impact would reach the razor allowing us to minimize the secondary packaging thus making a smaller overall parcel. Our razors are renowned for their weight and a small dense objects can be tricky to pin down inside a pack being shipped. We didn’t want it escaping an insert by working lose with vibrations which can be a risk with flat pack and folded inserts are used. Also engineering these inserts can be tricky, often requiring tooling to stamp them out due to complexity. Our solid approach means that the razor and the stand won’t go anywhere even if the parcels are miss handled, and are economical to CNC cut from sheet stock giving us flexibility to make incremental changes batch to batch. It provides a great crush barrier in case your parcel is in the bottom of a post bag ensuring your razor gets to you in the same condition we sent it.
2/ Minimise plastic use
2/Use as little plastic as possible.
The industry standard for a premium razor or product is probably a shaped/cut foam insert. It is certainly within the reach of a small brand as there are a lot of vendors offering this approach, and has a great presentation quality. But generally these foams can be very difficult, and often impossible to recycle. We consider most packaging including ours a single use item. After the initial presentation what does the packaging do for the next 100 years of the products life? We felt our customers were discerning enough to understand this and appreciate a packaging experience that didn’t rely on materials we have been told are premium for the last 30 years, but instead looked forward to the materials we need to use in the future.
We deliberately didn’t make a statement about our packaging ethos anywhere near the product pages or marketing. This is the first time we have even put these considerations on the website. Whilst we believe in our choices its not our position to preach or evangelize. We think its better to persuade through action, making these choices invisible by providing a great experience firstly.
There are of course other interesting sustainable materials such as cork, of paper pulp packaging. But a razor requires a certain scale to package, and the question of what to do with a big lump of cork once you have un-boxed the product is one we struggled to answer. And while cork is technically sustainable It begins to feel excessive and unnecessary material just to ship a razor. Its also a burden on you the customers who don’t want to store packaging for a product you intend to use; how do you get rid of cork? Perhaps it would be possible to make the packaging a travel case, but not every customer wants to travel with their razor or if the do, would likely not want a big cork block in their bag. Cork can be composted if you have the ability too, but is generally not accepted in most recycling schemes. We felt there were other better uses of cork than protecting a product that doesn’t need its specific qualities simply for shipping.
The only outstanding plastic used in our packaging are the document wallets required for customs forms, and a small amount (microns) of hot foil applied to our boxes. We are looking for innovative ways to cut these out.
3/ Be recyclable
3/Be as close to 100% recyclable as feasible.
Making the active choice to avoid plastic is only half of the solution. To further improve recyclability We decided it was best to homogenise our packaging materials, sticking only to cardboard. Cardboard is the most easily recycled material across the globe and also readily available as a recycled raw material to start with. Our supplier provided the statistic that it takes 70% less energy to use recycled paper than to produce new raw materials. Our boxes are source from recycled materials, and can become more packaging again themselves if recycled. By not mixing materials in our packaging we remove the need for any separation before it can be disposed of, and lowered the barrier for doing so on the customer end. Removing the guilt of throwing away excessive packaging.
We continue to review our packaging on a regular basis and ask our suppliers to help us identify where we can improve not only the experience and function of our packaging, but also the embedded qualities of energy and material density that we try to reduce as much as possible.
We would love to hear your thoughts on our packaging, what you like and what could be improved. If you want to talk or share please get in touch contact@hone-shaving.com