Evaluating Stock
When selected with care, stock packaging components can create a custom look.
By Michelle Nahum-AlbrightStock options aren't hot only on Wall Street. Hundreds of products lining retail shelves are packaged with stock components, allowing designers to speed a new product concept to market with limited investment and short notice. Such speed enables manufacturers to keep up with consumer trends, which can change at the speed of light. With a little effort and some judicious selection, stock components can take on almost any identity.
In addition to helping designers create trendy packages, standard components are available worldwide, enabling firms to support full product lines. They can also be supplied in low volumes, benefiting firms with limited capital or an interest in design experimentation. Finally, firms that supply stock components offer user-friendly experience and advice as part of their service.
Cost-Efficient Chameleons
Component choice is critical in creating a brand image for beauty packaging. Product success is as dependent on design as on content. A wealth of components and decoration alternatives are available to meet functional, visual, and economic needs. When skillfully chosen, stock closures, bottles, tottles, jars, fitments, deodorant cases, cans, tubes, pumps, and applicators can help create a custom look.
Low minimum-order structures and warehoused stock suits standard components to the needs of a developing business. Essie Weingarten of Essie Cosmetics (Astoria, NY) claims that "stock is the only way to go when you start out. It allows you the flexibility to buy exactly what you need when you need it."
When Target developed its Sonia Kaschuk professional makeup line, its designers selected the New York line by Toly Products USA (Edison, NJ), a resource offering 22 stock ranges. Jerry Sapienza, president of Toly, promises two new popularly priced ranges in 2001 that will be based on current best-selling silhouettes. The supplier also plans to further extend its decorating capabilities beyond its current techniques, which include silk screening, UV cured lacquering, polyurethane painting, and vacuum metallizing.
Rocco Bormioli USA (New York City) updates its offerings regularly. "We expand our line every year to anticipate market need," says Ida Traficant, sales director. "Twelve new items this year include perfumery bottles, cosmetic bottles, and jars."
Saint-Gobain Desjonqueres (La Defense, France; New York City), a global supplier of both custom and stock glass, offers nine new stock designs this year, including the new Arte lines. This range offers clean, modern styling of GCMIÐ standard bottles in 30 ml and 100 ml volumes, as well as a 50-ml jar targeted at the skin care market. Thierry LeGoff, vice president of marketing for Saint-Gobain Desjonqueres, notes that his firm is the only glass manufacturer offering all colors of glass in both tank and feeder with dedicated, constantly operating opal tanks.
Arrowpak (Milan, Italy; Richmond Hill, NY) has recently launched the Veneri line in a wide variety of sizes. Jars and bottles with lotion-formula pumps are available.
Don Lakin, president of Lako Associates Inc. (Springfield, NJ), which represents Cebal Aluminium Tubes, Cans, and Bottles for North America, explains recent innovations. "We have been developing new soft-touch lacquers, tapered can shoulders, and a new aluminum bottle with a plastic external neck ring to serve our customers."
Creative Applications
Creativity can transform these standard components into a distinctive brand collection. A smart combination of component choice, color selection, and decoration will significantly increase perceived product value. Based on component choice, decoration techniques range from ceramic decoration, acid etching, silk screening, metallizing, and plating.
"We often customize stock cases with finishes and textures," says Carl Lombardi, president, Lombardi Design (Freeport, NY). "Our clients save money that would otherwise go toward design, while receiving componentry that is tailored to their specifications."
Stock packaging is ideal for gift sets, adds Lombardi. "Usually gift sets are ordered in quantities that do not justify custom molds." By decorating stock components, he says, a customized look that is cost-effective can be achieved.
Several cosmetic marketers have created notable designs with stock packaging components. Sephora's extensive, popular house cosmetic line utilizes the Monaco compact by Toly Products. Dm-Drogerie Markt, a German pharmacy, repackaged its Alverde line of natural products in a simple round compact featuring a crescent-shaped window by Toly Products. HCT Packaging (Bedminster, NJ), a supplier of compacts, lipstick cases, and cosmetic kits, has supplied components contributing to the well-known private-label range of Boots Chemists in the UK. Dennis Anderson of HCT says his firm "reacts to market trends by providing imaginative and unique designs such as the patented lip-gloss ring and pendant."
Coty's Healing Garden and Calgon lines as well as Parfums de Coeur's Body Fantasies have all built major marketplace franchises with the aid of a variety of stock components. Custom Bottle, a division of Lerman Container, serves this broad market with a large variety of blown bottle and jar styles.
Murray Nadel of Nadel Industries (Port Chester, NY), a division of Applied Tech Products, says Nadel has always strived to creatively fill voids in the marketplace. He points to innovative, heavy-walled PETG jars mirrors, trays, and purse items.
Building a Global Brand
Beauty is a global business, requiring worldwide resources. Savvy clients today can meet their needs from among stock components produced around the world. Only a small selection of examples follows. Nadel Industries produces injection-molded plastic in the United States as well as in China. Maticplast provides Italian injection-mold ed plastic. Arrowpak offers Italian pumps, injection-molded plastic, and glass, as well as Austrian glass. Saint-Gobain Desjonqueres has added to its perfumery, cosmetic, and skin-care glass capabilities in France a facility in Covington, GA, dedicated to the needs of North American customers. Toly produces injected-molded plastic in Malta and Zamac metal in France. Cebal provides aluminum tubes, cans, and bottles from facilities in France, the UK, Italy, Finland, the Czech Republic, and China. Risdon-AMS (Naugatuck, CT) produces plastic and metal in the United States, Canada, France, and Italy. Tech Industries manufactures compression- and injection-molded items in the United States, Ireland, and Brazil.
Taking service and innovation to another level, Lerman Container (Naugatuck, CT) has entered the world of e-commerce with the creation of B2BPKG.com. This on-line business-to-business portal for the packaging industry facilitates procurement and centers order activity in one location. This site features reference guides as well as a searchable product catalog with pictures, prints, and pricing. The site is now in demo mode, with a launch date a few months away.
Suppliers also offer their own Web sites. Saint-Gobain Desjonqueres (http://www.saint-gobain-desjonqueres.com) features a complete on-line catalog. Its "Designer Corner" enables bottles to be dressed with caps and colors, allowing browsers to test different package image options. O. Berk Company's Cosmetic Packaging Group (Union, NJ) has recently produced the Pocket Container Sourcebook, which the company plans to feature on its Web site, http://www.OBerk. com. The booklet provides an overview of the containers and closures in stock for rapid delivery. Arrowpak also provides Web site business-to-business access at http:// www.arrowpak.com.
Supplier Support
Cosmetic designers get more than components from stock suppliersÑthey get a willing partner with a wealth of design, manufacturing, and business sense. Roland Baranes of Arrowpak says his firm emphasizes service, "whether the client is big or small."
Relying on stock suppliers also enables designers to make a concept into a product quickly, without tool investment.
When you choose stock, you'll most likely meet your needs cost-efficiently and quickly.