Join the Club

A shopping trip to a club store is a much different experience than popping into a typical supermarket or big-box retailer. The carts are bigger, the aisles wider, and you have to flash a membership card at the door to prove you belong.

The items on the shelves, though, are largely the same as those in a standard retail environment, except that they are sold in bulk quantities. One may think this would lead to the packaging being mostly the same, just on a larger scale. But no. After getting the low-down from industry experts we found there are several important distinguishing packaging factors that can determine whether a product sinks or swims on club store shelves.

Appetite Appeal

In most supermarkets, shoppers are faced with a wide selection of brands that are selling a similar product. Todd Ostendorf, creative director and brand strategist for Brand Directions, a brand realization firm, explains that this leads to companies using packaging to promote the brand, rather than the product.

For example, in a grocery store, there are numerous options of chocolate cookies with a cream filling, so Nabisco's packaging may attempt to express its Oreo brand and logo largely and boldly, to steer the consumer away from a similar cookie.

In a club store, Ostendorf says, the script is flipped. He says most of these stores elect to carry a limited number of brands per product type, in some cases choosing just one. For example, if Oreo is the chosen chocolate sandwich cookie of a club store, the brand owner is more interested in selling the specific product (Oreos) to the consumer. As a result, the logo and branding could be diminished and the packaging is more likely to display an image of an Oreo cookie plunging into a glass of milk.

"By changing the packaging graphics they are trying to influence you to buy the chocolate sandwich cookie over the chocolate chip cookie," Ostendorf explains. "What they've done is reduced the branding and increased the appetite appeal."

Similarly, Adam Bloom, marketing manager for Sonoco Displays and Packaging, says providing these appealing graphics across multiple channels can increase a product's competitiveness in the club store.

"To compensate for the absence of more customary point-of-purchase in-store display tactics, high-impact graphics on the primary selling unit and on the master carton or tray heighten visibility, shopper appeal, and provide competitive differentiation in the club environment, helping to elevate the shopping experience for members," he states.

The reasoning behind carrying such limited brand options, Ostendorf says, is that club store members expect a level of quality in the products they are presented. This leads to brands needing to earn their position in the club store.

It's a tough test, Ostendorf explains, and if a brand doesn't sell, it will be quickly replaced.

"Everything is an eight week test," he says. "They bring you in and you drop your product in the store. You have eight weeks to make that product perform, and if it doesn't meet a certain velocity level, you're gone. Then, if it works for eight weeks, they may extend you to 15 weeks, and if that works, they reinstate you as a permanent item."

Safely shoppable

Once a product gets the call up to the club store level, it requires more than just plopping some boxes down on a shelf or a pallet and watching the sales roll in. There are rules and regulations the stores implement that are geared toward optimizing "shopability" and increasing safety.

Mid-Atlantic Packaging, Inc., is a Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania-based producer and printer of corrugated packaging, specializing in providing packaging for the club environment. Jeff Jolley, Mid-Atlantic's assistant design manager, explains that this large-scale packaging needs to strike a balance between being easily identified and accessed by consumers, while not overloading a pallet, causing a potentially dangerous situation.

"The windows of the cases or whatever the display vehicle is, must work in different orientations," says Jolley. "It's always about maximizing that pallet to hold as much product as possible, and all the product is heavy. Almost every time it's these huge, heavy pallets."

Alan Devitt, the test lab manager at Mid-Atlantic, explains that Costco, BJ's Wholesale Club, and Sam's Club, the three most prevalent club stores in the US, all require packaging to pass a test developed in conjunction with the International Safe Transit Association.

Both Costco and BJ's require the ISTA 3E test, while Sam's Club has its own set of testing guidelines it developed with assistance from ISTA. Devitt explains that during the packaging design process, one of his goals is to test out various combinations of materials to create a package that is as lightweight as possible, but strong enough to meet the demanding requirements for club stores.

"We can determine the required board combinations so we can make it strong enough, but not over package it," Devitt states. "Our whole goal is to reduce the amount of [paper] fiber in the packaging display. We try to give them a cost savings and be sustainable."

Eye appeal

Because the layout of club stores differs significantly from typical retail environments, different strategies need to be put in place when developing packaging concepts. Ostendorf points to "billboarding," or the use of graphics on individual packages to create a larger graphic when packages are placed next to each other, similar to what is done in beverage aisles of supermarkets to display a "wall" of Coke, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper.

Another effective use of graphics, Ostendorf says, is using a larger display to house the individual units. By printing similar graphics onto the display, it continues to push the product, even when individual boxes are removed.

"They're integrating the packaging into the display," Ostendorf explains. "When you remove a package, the display dies a little bit so you've got this hole where the package once was. Now they're printing the package on the display so when you remove the package out of the display, it still continues to sell and billboard the brand."

Another challenge in packaging for club stores stems from the substantial amount of corrugated board the stores use. Printing on corrugated is hardly ideal when trying to create eye-catching graphics, so most of the corrugated packaging in club stores implements a printed topsheet which is adhered to the corrugated flutes.

Even with this process in place, Devitt says the substrate may carry color shifts that require printing adjustments, even in the midst of a run.

"One of the hard things we've found is trying to keep a consistent color," he explains. "We use color measuring devices and we'll actually measure color throughout the run and change the ink formulations to bring the ink back into specifications. In a club store, on one palette you may see three or four different shades of a color. Our goal is to make all of the different shades of that color be indistinguishable from each other."

According to Bloom, the use of vivid colors and color saturation is an effective strategy for products to hold the interest of the club store shopper.

Club stores, he says, tend to be low-light environments and effective use of color is necessary to grab a shopper's attention.

"Successful brands have learned to distill their branding elements down to their core essence for club store use by simplifying messaging and visuals, and by using highly saturated colors where appropriate to help differentiate and quickly attract shopper attention," Bloom explains. "Color blocking achieved through use of vivid color or billboarding design techniques are often employed in this channel to draw and hold shopper attention."

Pulling it all together

While the products in club stores are generally the same as can be found in traditional retail stores, they're sold much differently. The most successful brands understand the need to provide a durable package that utilizes sharp graphics and colors to push the product, while not sacrificing key brand elements.

"Club store packaging must withstand the rigors of the warehouse club supply chain and environment while also capturing shopper attention," Bloom says. "Packaging must quickly help club members identify the product offering while communicating value messaging, core brand benefits and key product attributes." pP

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