What do consumers want from your packaging? Remember, it’s another opportunity to strengthen that all-important relationship factor.

Get it wrong, and you sour your customer’s opinion of you. Get it right, and you really stand out because most businesses don’t take the time to optimize their packaging for the customer experience.

Here’s what consumers can’t do without in 2021:

1. Your Brand Story

Customers want to feel like you really get them on a deep, emotional level. In that respect, it’s no different than their primary relationship.

Not all brands’ customers consistently do this. But you can bet they remember and come back to the ones who truly get them the most.

Share the story of how your brand has continued to adapt to changing customer needs despite extreme adversity.

Companies have not only reinvented their packaging to more closely reflect what their customers want, but they’ve also used NFC tags and QR codes to direct consumers to stories about the specific origin of their product.

For example, New Zealand (yes, the country as a whole) created a Made with Care campaign. In this campaign, QR codes were placed on products from the country.

Consumers could then scan the code and read about the story of the farm from which their products originated.

How original, direct, and personal!

2. Supply Chain Transparency

The World Economic Forum has found that today’s customer doesn’t just want the product or the experience it offers.

They want to know about the entire journey of the product.

For example, they don’t want to find out that forced child labor was used to make the product.

And they don’t want to learn that manufacturing the product released all sorts of pollution.

Princes, a leading UK-based food and drink brand, took that to the extreme. On each of their products, you can scan a QR code that then drives you to a web page.

This web page then contains information about the product’s journey from the farm to retail shelves. You can literally learn about every last stop it makes.

You can use your retail packaging to highlight the brief story of your product’s life. And then a QR code and landing page can flesh out the details.

3. Feedback

What if you could get direct consumer feedback on your product’s packaging at a bare bones cost?

Using the QR code strategies discussed above, you can simply direct consumers to a website page where they can share their feedback on your packaging.

Now, you don’t have to wait for months and months of sales data to flow in and then make your guesses.

Learn exactly what people think of your packaging. They’ll also tend to be more honest because they don’t have to share the information in person.

Consumers may not be aware of this yet. But you know how people love to share their opinion.

Your retail packaging is more of an asset than you think. So take these to heart. And blow by your competition while they sit around trying to figure out what to do.