What Is Retail-Ready Packaging?

Learn about:

• What Retail-Ready Packaging is
• Why suppliers should use RRP
• The benefits of RRP

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Once a product hits the store, it faces stiff competition from similar products by different brands or suppliers. The challenges a brand faces trying to make its products noticeable and sell often begin much earlier in the supply chain before the goods make their way onto store shelves.

The focus should be on winning over consumers and retailers, and among many other things, the packaging is critical.

Retail-ready packaging makes a supplier’s product more eye-catching to retailers and prospective customers. The demand for this kind of packaging is increasing, and more brands across the retail marketplace are making the switch.

So, what exactly is retail-ready packaging (RRP), and what benefits does it bring to businesses? Read on to learn more. 

What is Retail-Ready Packaging?

Retail-Ready Packaging (RRP), also known as shelf-ready packaging, refers to packaging for retail products where the supplier cleanly transports the container straight to the shelf with no external packaging and very minimal handling. 

Predominantly, these boxes consist of corrugated materials and require easy removal of the front or top to transform them into a display point for a supplier’s brand. Retailers can then stack them on their shelves as they come. The packaging is eco-friendly and allows the storage of many products at once. 

Retail-Ready Packaging on the shelf

Related Reading: What Is Vendor-Managed Inventory?

Why use Retail-Ready Packaging? 

Operational costs at all retail outlets come in various sizes and shapes. Retailers are working towards trimming these costs in every way possible. Fortunately, over the last few years, retailers seem to have found the perfect area where they can cut down on the high operational costs.

Cutting down on labor costs can bring down overall costs significantly. This should not come as a surprise because labor costs account for 20% of a retailer’s revenue. These costs include the workforce needed to find goods in stock, display them on shelves, and dispose of the already-used packaging.

Shelf-ready packaging makes it possible to move products directly to the shelf after offloading them from the delivery truck, doing away with the need to sort out or unpack each product. Another reason why retailers enjoy RRP is it enhances store cleanliness, triggers impulse buying, and leaves fewer spaces on the shelves.

According to Walmart, employees should manage to remove RRP from trucks and display them on the shelf in ideally just “two touches.” In turn, this saves the retailer money and time on labor costs.

Also, what’s great is that apart from benefitting retailers, RRP benefits consumers too. How? It makes it easy for them to identify items. What’s more, it makes the transition from the shelf to the shopping cart simpler, enhancing the shopping experience.

For suppliers, the more effortless movement of products from the warehouse via a shipper to the shelves results in better in-stock availability of their products. Additionally, RRP improves the visibility and positioning of the supplier, boosting chances for a sale at the store level. 

What are the benefits of Retail-Ready Packaging?

Compared to traditional retail packing, RRP offers many benefits to retailers, suppliers, and customers. The main benefits derived from using RRP include:

1. Pushes brands to think holistically

Primary package design can highly impact secondary packaging as well as pallet optimization. Suppliers must ensure the RRP holds up throughout the transition from warehouse to shelf. It will save them on costs that may result from damaged products in transit.  

2. Helps reduce packaging waste

Proper packaging, aimed at minimizing waste, means suppliers or brands can pay less for materials at first. When the product life cycle comes to an end, retailers spend less energy, time, and money disposing of the material. Most of the packaging material is recyclable.  

3. Enables suppliers to avoid stock-outs

RRP makes it easy and quick to monitor on-shelf availability. When a product is about to run out of stock, employees can restock fast, helping the supplier avoid stock-outs.

Avoiding out-of-stocks is especially relevant for consumer packaged goods (CPG), which are those items that tend to need routine replenishment due to their limited shelf-life. The more a particular product remains on the shelf, the more brand exposure, and subsequently, sales.  

4. Supplements product presentation

When a brand or supplier deliberately designs its packaging as stackable and sturdy on shelves, it ensures the product maintains its aesthetic integrity. That way, suppliers prevent their merchandise from muddling up into a heap as its sale progresses. 

Wrap up

Retailers are noticing how the economics of high-volume, easy-handling, and fast-moving consumer products are changing in recent years. Big box stores are leading the movement in cutting down on one of the highest operating costs: labor. They’re doing this by utilizing Retail-Ready Packaging.

Apart from retailers, using RRP properly has numerous benefits to suppliers and consumers, too. Before brands can design their RRP, they need to consult with retailers to ensure the type of shelf-ready packaging they create fits the specific store environment in which the products will live. 

By thinking backward from the shelf, suppliers can develop the optimal size of an RRP for a specific type and quantity of the item that fits onto the rack.

Track your products’ performance

Now that you’ve got your packaging down, you’ll need to track how well your products sell in Walmart stores. Using SupplyPike’s Retail Intelligence app, you can quickly download performance reports that are easy to digest and share.

Retail Intelligence – Performance Report

Check out the app today to see your data in action for free!