CPL, located in the heart of Asia's industrial belt, has been tempted on occasion to compete with other firms by slashing prices and going for the quick sale. According to Lucy Ouyang, in charge of sales and marketing at the company, that's exactly the sort of business in which CPL decidedly does NOT want to be.

What does CPL actually mean?

CPL stands for “Creative Packaging Labs”. We started the company with one direct and simple concept: we learn a client’s needs and then submit their requirements to our labs where we build excellent packaging solutions from scratch. We work with many skin care and cosmetic brands worldwide to offer them complete packaging services and solutions. Most of the components we provide are made of acrylic, aluminum, glass, and many other material variations, depending on the requirements of the project. We're a manufacturer and full project service provider. Sometimes we encounter projects that require components we may not be able to provide and we use our network of connections in China and other places around the world to get the items we need for the project requirements.

How is CPL different from other packaging companies?

We are more than just a packaging manufacturer that takes orders and produces whatever a client requests. Based on our years of experience in mass production and customer service, we provide professional consultancy during initial project discussions with clients, and make suggestions on packaging design as well as materials, functionality, and everything else. We make sure companies who work with us have the most competitive and advanced designs available in order to win consumers over within their target markets.

What markets are those?

We work with many companies globally, but most of them come from the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. All of our products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Zhejiang, China. That's also where we have our offices and from where I manage the sales team. I also oversee client relations and make sure our customers are satisfied and keep coming back.

What changes has CPL undergone over the last decade?

In 2011, CPL became a share holding company, and that transformed our sales activity from a domestic trading business to an export-oriented enterprise. To fulfil increasing demands in premium packaging design, we've further invested in manufacturing facilities to expand our production capabilities with regard to acrylic and glass components. This is also part of our plan to introduce different sorts of visual designs to part of our current customers, to show them luxurious packaging doesn’t necessarily come with an expensive pricetag.

Is that proving difficult to do?

As mentioned, we want to introduce luxurious packaging to our current customers with competitive prices. This is because there are so many beauty and cosmetic packaging suppliers in the region and we have to work out a plan to differentiate ourselves from them. We do not want to engage CPL in the typical price war. That's a terrible business cycle for any company. CPL has the advantage of being creative and professional with regard to its packaging solutions. We had to build up our reputation little by little, one customer at a time, project by project. The challenge, then, is to build our business without compromising our level of quality or service. We're well on our way to surmounting that particular challenge by becoming the leading, trusted firm in our market and region. We think it's better to establish longlasting, mutually beneficial relationships

Are there any new products or services you'd care to mention?

I think our biggest news is that we're going to invest in all new facilities and machines this coming year. We're working hard to update our operations in order to offer quicker project delivery and more simultaneous runs. Throughout the year, most of our production facilities will be upgraded with robotic automation to achieve higher production rates and maintain the high quality and consistency for which we're known. With regard to new products, there are a few in the works, as well as some bespoke projects we're working on, but I'll keep those under my hat until we're closer to launch.

What about digital marketing? Is it a large part of your day to day work?

To a degree, yes. Digital marketing is much more important than it used to be. We've been allied with Webpackaging and Webpac for some time. The Webpackaging community is an important and informative platform for us to present a professional image and connect with companies internationally. We started as a Webpackaging member supplier in 2009, and in 2012 we decided to re-brand ourselves and build our web site with Webpac. The team did an amazing job for us to create our current image and branding. That partnership is just one aspect of what we do, however. We also send out our own mailings, communicate with prospective leads and use social media to coordinate activities and engage with people in conversations. You must have three separate things to market digitally: you need to have a good web site, you need to have engaging content, and you need to tell people about them. It's really that simple!