When designing packaging, you always need to remember the goal. Packaging should speak to the brand, what the product is, contain nutritional or product details, and answer consumer questions. It also needs to make a product stand out and be recognizable on the shelf. Many consumers take a “grab and go” approach when shopping for food or health/beauty products and brand packaging needs to stand out.

For consumer product goods (CPG), the physical product, its appearance, packaging, display, etc., are all elements critical to the final moment of truth (when consumers pick up a product). Ten years ago, consumers spent less than six seconds at the shelf looking for a product. Today, I would hypothesize that it is about three seconds. While the time consumers spend at the shelf was already in decline, COVID has accelerated it. And for some consumers, they are no longer even at the physical shelf shopping.

First, consumers were already shifting to online shopping for many CPG products. Sites like Amazon, PeaPod, Target, and Chewy helped pave the way and made it easy for people to order CPG products like grocery staples, beauty products or pet foods online. But COVID turned online shopping from a convenience to a necessity. For example, online grocery sales have been slowly growing, hitting a new record of 22% year over year growth in 2019. But COVID has driven that number past 40%.