Packaging Suppliers Tune in to Children to Expand Their Product Range

The market for plastic packaging seems limitless, constrained only by human imagination and capacity for invention. It is used in almost every area of the home and workplace, and is constantly reinventing itself, with long-standing products being continually improved, and new products coming onto the market to satisfy consumer demand. Plastic is especially suited to products designed for use by children, from baby supplies to toys, to items used consistently in the school environment such as learning materials and personal products like drink bottles and lunch boxes. Plastic is light and safe for children to handle and carry as unlike glass, it won’t shatter if dropped.

Parent also appreciate that plastic containers are child-friendly, not only from the safety aspect, but also because plastic containers are usually inexpensive, and easily replaced if they are lost or stolen. Unfortunately things happen in the school environment, and sending a child to school with expensive items in their backpacks is a temptation to other children to take them. Sometimes it seems safer to send them to school with everything in plastic bags Brisbane.

For a supplier catering to the lunch box brigade, there are a few basic requirements that most parents would think are common sense, but which sometimes are missing in products that were supposedly designed for children. This possibly happens because some suppliers take products designed for adults and downsize them, without changing any of the other features. Just making something smaller does not mean it is suitable for a child to use, and unfortunately many parents only find that out when the child tries to use the product by themselves away from the assistance of adults.

Something as simple as a child’s lunch box is a case in point. There are hundreds of thousands of children at school at any one time during the school calendar, and presumably an equal number of lunch boxes. This is a huge market for any supplier of plastic packaging. To capture a sizeable part of the market, suppliers should ensure that lunch boxes are child friendly. Simple things such as bright colours, sizes and shapes that can be easily handled by small hands, and catches that are easy to open and close, can convince a parent to choose one product over another.

This also applies to the smaller packaging items that go inside the lunch box. The push for healthy lunches has encouraged parents to pack small containers of dried mixed fruit, carrot and celery sticks, orange quarters, “leftovers” such as cold pasta and other small snack-type items to keep their children away from the tuck shop. These small containers also need to be visually appealing and easy to open and handle. Packaging suppliers can increase sales and profits by catering to this market.

Children are very persuasive shoppers when they see something they want. It is especially desirable if it is part of a current trend such as plastic packaging that is produced under licence by companies such as Disney. Suppliers who produce what children want, and also make their products cost-effective and functional will have a direct link to parental wallets.