Commercial Printing for Retail: Enhancing Customer Experience and Brand Visibility

At first glance, it may seem like everything about retail has gone digital. However, print marketing remains one of the most powerful customer-attracting tools a retailer has at their disposal.

Packaging, in-store signage, and direct mail offer something digital marketing can’t – a real-world impression. When optimized with creative finishes and innovative features, this advantage can help boost a customer’s impression of a brand in a big way. As this blog will show through practical examples, there’s simply no substitute for print when you want to build stronger connections between people and products.

How Print Enhances the Retail Experience

All forms of retail, even online shopping, center on tangible real-world experiences. Experiences like visiting stores, browsing aisles, opening packaging, and handling goods. Quality print products enhance these experiences and advance a brand’s reputation in multiple ways.

Brand Recognition

Print materials physically associated with products, such as packaging and POS displays, can help consumers connect their positive opinions of those products and the larger brand. However, to ensure 100% of the goodwill a customer feels about a product gets tied back to the brand as a whole, the print components need to be impeccably branded.

Print materials with strong branding tend to share a few key traits, including:

• Prominent and consistent use of logos and other brand visuals.
• Prominent and consistent use of precise brand colors.
• Consistent use of just one or two brand-standard fonts.

Customer Engagement

Innovative use of print finishes and features can help draw a customer’s eye, whether they’re visiting a store or simply at home opening their mail. For example:

• Metallic and holographic foils can help draw attention to key information.
• Crisp, accurate, saturated product images can help them feel more real and desirable.
• Custom packaging can make the products they contain feel more exciting or valuable.
• Tactile print finishes can create a more luxurious, multi-sensory impression.

Sales Impact

Excellent print design can help boost sales and influence customer behavior, particularly when applied to materials like point-of-purchase (POP) displays and print packaging. The use of eye-catching finishes, strong branding, innovative 3D design elements, and high-quality materials all help cut through the clutter of retail environments and increase the perceived value of your products vs. competitors.

Retail Print Solutions That Make an Impact

Now that the concrete benefits of print have been established, let’s explore a few specific print solutions that have an outsized impact on the retail industry.

Custom Product Packaging and Bags

Packaging and bags are one of the only print solutions with zero digital substitutes. There’s simply no way to protect and ship a toy or a box of chocolates with the internet alone. This makes them indispensable, even for digital-first operations. And if they must be used, then why not use them to improve brand reputation and customer loyalty? 

Every box, band, and bag that protects and transports your product while featuring attractive, consistent branding is another link in the customer’s mind between that product’s positive qualities and your brand as a whole.

Point of Purchase (POP) Displays and In-Store Signage

Using in-store promotional print solutions, like POP displays and signs, allows you to direct customer attention to the products and features you deem a top priority. These solutions can serve as a repeat branded touchpoint for customers as they move through the store. And the more positive touchpoints a brand has with a customer, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Direct Mail & Loyalty Marketing

Direct mail and print marketing solutions can go a long way toward securing loyal customers, but only if they’re well-designed. Quality materials, appealing layouts, and attention-grabbing finishes like spot gloss or soft touch help brand messaging jump off the paper. They encourage customers to take more time interacting with things like flyers, catalogs, and brochures and ultimately form a stronger desire for the products they feature.

Retail Print Trends and Innovations

Unfortunately, the historic shortcomings of print solutions have left some retailers wary of leaning on them too heavily. However, there’s some seriously good news on this front; modern print innovations have remedied almost all of those old concerns.

For example, one of the top print trends of late has been a move towards eco-friendly and sustainable practices. Modern printers have access to an enormous variety of recycled and renewable materials and can offer custom design solutions that help minimize waste and excess. Top-quality modern printers, like Wallace Carlson, have also implemented robust energy reduction and material recycling programs, slashing their carbon footprint while continuing to offer exceptional quality and service.

Another historic drawback of print media has been its lack of interactive features. While a digital ad can be clicked to take the customer straight to the sales page, print required the extra step of typing in a URL or searching for a product online. However, in the era of smartphones, this problem has also been eliminated. QR codes and other AR enhancements can be designed right into packaging, flyers, catalogs, displays, signs, and more. So now, all it takes to find a product featured in print is a tap of a phone screen.