Choosing the Perfect Packaging

When I first set out to open my boutique, it took two full weeks of brainstorming for me to come up with and decide on the name Ooh La Luxe! To this day, that was the hardest decision I’ve had to make regarding my boutique. Although I do have a close second now. And that’s deciding on shopping bags.

Yes, shopping bags.

It seems almost trivial but when you think about it, a shopping bag not only tells customers (and potential customers) a lot about your store, and it can also be a highly influential marketing tool. Since I’m running a high end boutique I know that every little detail counts, and I want my packaging to be just as “luxe” as the clothes themselves.

So as I set out to choose the right packaging, getting branded bags were the first thing I crossed off my list. Eurototes with my logo printed front and back would be amazing, but spending $500 just on bags when I’m starting out? Not so awesome. But I knew I wanted something pink, eye catching and fun to match my logo. So I started requesting samples from sites like Uline, DiscountShoppingBags.com and PaperMart.com (oh wait….papermart won’t send out samples. I could write an entire blog complaining about this company.)

My first thought was to keep things as inexpensive as possible, which meant basic, colored kraft bags. I mean, hey, at least they were pink? But that didn’t change the fact that they were ugly and brown on the inside, and they were flimsy, and they had these weird raffia like handles that weren’t comfortable to hold on to at all. And on top of all that, Uline thought it would be a smart idea to fold the sample up when they sent it to me, which made the quality of the bag appear even worse. Nothing luxe about this, even when I experimented with zebra print tissue paper (which my dad hated, by the way).

The zebra print ended up looking great with a metallic silver bag, but it wasn’t the look I was going for, not to mention those bags are pretty expensive. And I also tried white glossy craft bags but those were just too plain.

Luckily, I stumbled upon DiscountShoppingBags.com and found these amazing tone on tone patterned shopping bags. So cute! They cost about $30 more than the craft but it’s money well spent. I ended up going with those and the smaller shadow striped kraft bags, which I got from PaperMart.com (against my better judgement). I also purchased hot pink tissue paper from Paper Mart, since they have the cheapest prices online and you can buy bags by the package and not in bulk. But still, it annoys me that they refused to send me samples and told me to buy and return if I wasn’t happy with the product….and pay $14 for shipping. Yeah, right.