Equi London is a multi-award-winning e-commerce brand specialising in women’s health and beauty supplements. Their main route to market is selling online, and they were looking to improve their packaging to cut costs, boost brand awareness and protect their products. Their supplements were previously sent in glass bottles and unbranded boxes directly to customers' doors. To help prevent the movement of the bottles inside the boxes, a lot of paper void fill was used to reduce the risk of breakage during transit.

However, despite using recyclable damage prevention materials, Equi London still received complaints from customers about their health and beauty supplements arriving damaged. Because of this – and a lack of brand awareness due to plain box packaging – Equi London knew there must be a better way. So, they turned to our Smurfit Kappa Beacon team for help.

Improved protection and appeal

To help combat the excessive material and packaging waste, the Smurfit Kappa Beacon team reduced Equi London’s need for a 4-box solution to just 2 and created internal corrugated fitting options to reduce product damage. In addition to improving their packaging’s structural design, a flexo print design was applied to offer Equi London further branding opportunities, helping to increase awareness and deliver on the overall consumer experience.

Packaging to be proud of

The 2-box outer solution boasted several neat, internal corrugated fitting options for Equi London’s glass supplement bottles to sit in. This allowed the bottles to be securely packaged, preventing movement within the box, and reducing the risk of product damage.

We created a strong, colourful print finish on both the outside and inside of the outer boxes helping Equi London to provide the ‘wow’ unboxing experience they were chasing for their customers. This positive brand interaction is more likely to create advocates for the brand who will spread the word amongst their social circles, encourage the sharing of their unboxing experiences on social media and ultimately enhance the potential for repeat purchases.

Cutting costs

By consolidating the number of corrugated box solutions in their range by half (from 4 to 2), we reduced the storage space Equi London required, as well as reducing associated transport costs and emissions. As for the internal fittings, we were able to make them more economical, minimising tooling costs and removing Equi London’s need to purchase void fill from another supplier, providing a complete cost-effective solution and service to the client.

These fittings also meant several different size combinations of supplements could now be shipped using the same packaging solution. Equi London can now place several combinations of supplement jars into just one box, reducing both their shipping costs and the postage costs for their customer. This reduction in customer costs is likely to encourage increased transaction spend and repeat purchasing.

Adding value for customer and client

At Smurfit Kappa, we look to add value and support businesses of any size. For Equi London, our new corrugated packaging solution, with attractive print and effective internal fittings, has left them feeling proud of their brand, with a sense that their packaging is now fully reflective of their brand ethos. They are now delighting customers across the globe with improved consumer experiences.

This improvement has given Equi London the best chance of impressing its customers with packaging that also lends itself well to social sharing, helping to raise brand awareness and increase the potential for repeat business from their customer base. Plus, importantly, it has led to a reduction in product damage, costs, and customer complaints.

Rosie Speight, Co-Founder and Director at Equi London, reflects,

“The team at Smurfit Kappa were brilliant in helping us create our new e-commerce boxes, which have instantly elevated our customer’s unboxing experience. The jars are presented to our customers beautifully, with some equally helpful information about the product. We’ve reduced waste which is always a priority of ours and stopped damage and breakages altogether, and the boxes look pretty cool! Couldn’t recommend more!”.

Equi London loved their new packaging so much that they have placed their next order with us, and we look forward to continuing our packaging partnership with them!

If you’re looking for sustainable packaging, accessible packaging, or packaging to give you the extra edge over your competitors, then get in touch today.