About

PackageRepublic.com is where packaging professionals and consumers, who are passionate about packaging, meet. From a consumer’s perspective, a package is a container to hold something that has intrinsic value. In itself, packaging is often thought to be invisible to the consumer, as it is not the product that is purchased. While it is true that consumers buy orange juice, and not the package that holds it, the package itself drives consumer choice.

While environmental drivers are obvious, there are factors in the reasoning behind the consumer’s choice of a package format over another that are not so obvious. In most “low involvement” product purchases where the purchase is not a considered purchase, the package that holds the product holds little intrinsic value. However, negative previous experiences become drivers in making the choice in the grocery store aisle. Given two equal products, consumers will choose the one in a more user friendly package format, whether that is from an environmental, attractiveness, or user friendliness perspective.

Our mission here at PackageRepublic.com, is to look at a cross section of packages globally, and critique them using our expert panel and contributing editors. These are package industry veterans with experience in package innovation, design, usability, as well as people from similar disciplines in other industries.

Over 99 Trillion Served

Every year, trillions of packages are consumed globally. While this number is hard to digest on face value, it is not too difficult to arrive at. Coca-Cola for example ships hundreds of billions of packages of drinks annually. And that is only Coca-Cola. When you factor in other industry giants, and look at numbers globally, package consumption numbers are very high. Even with low involvement products, when one aggregates by trillions, the overall consumer and environmental impact tends to be huge.

Innovation

Innovation has become a word that is so commonly misused, it is hard to see how it can apply to this industry. Not surprisingly, innovation in this industry tends to be low, and package formats with low consumer utility, like bubble packs continue to dominate the landscape [and the landfills]. Here in PackageRepublic.com we intend to collect insights and perspectives from consumers, as well as professionals, ultimately to improve on consumer centric, innovative, and environmentally conscious choices.

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