As a small business owner, you spend a lot of time creating products or services you want people to love. So you’re always working to make your thing better. But sometimes, it’s not your thing that needs work, it’s your packaging. In today’s competitive market, the wrapper matters more than you think.

A brand that gets it

I ordered a Simple Modern insulated water bottle from Amazon recently. It got good reviews and was the right price. Two days later, it was on my front porch.

Pretty average experience so far.

The reason I’m telling this story is because of what happened when I opened the box containing the water bottle. I was very pleasantly surprised.

The outside of the box was beautifully printed, and the box itself was very sturdy, much sturdier than it needed to be. The box felt expensive. Upon opening the box, I noticed how perfectly the water bottle fit inside. And then as I was removing the water bottle, it reminded me of the care and detail that Apple puts into its product packaging.

I didn’t know what to expect from Simple Modern, but I was pretty blown away by the attention to detail they put into their packaging.

I know it’s just a water bottle, but that experience stuck with me and lifted their brand up in my mind. Simple Modern gets it, the wrapper matters.

And one that doesn’t

A few years ago, I ordered some business cards for a client. At the time, I was having trouble finding a printer that could do square business cards (they’re pretty common today) at a reasonable price.

Their online ordering process was a bit clunky. I wasn’t sure I had successfully placed the order, so I had to email customer service a few times. They assured me that the order had been placed properly and that the cards would be delivered soon.

About a week later, a rather large box arrived at my client’s house. It was like 14″ x 16″ or something close to that. Pretty large for business cards, we thought.

When she opened the box, she found her 500 printed business cards, loose in the box. No smaller boxes containing her cards, not even a rubber band holding them together. They were just all loosey-goosey floating around in a strangely large box.

The cards looked great, but the packaging was a hot mess.

I have never done business with them again. This print company doesn’t get it. They don’t think that the wrapper matters.

Why the wrapper matters

The hard truth is that these are competitive times we’re living in. There are a lot of businesses doing what you’re doing, offering the same kinds of products or services, and some even do it better than you (gasp!). Just having a great product won’t cut it. It also has to be presented in a way that feels good to the customer.

The product you’re selling might be unique and functional, but if the package is shoddy, no one’s ever going to pick it up off the shelf.

The service you provide might be top-notch, but if it’s presented by a bitter chainsmoking complainer, you will never see a repeat customer or a referral.

I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but we do it all the time. We’ve been trained to think that if it looks crappy on the outside, it’s probably crap on the inside too.

The bottom line is this: If the wrapper doesn’t matter to you, you won’t matter to your customer.

Wrappers to consider

The two stories I shared are about physical product packaging and shipped goods, but there are all kinds of wrappers that you use in your business, and they all matter.

Here are a few other types of wrappers you might want to start thinking about:

Website. The content of your website is more important than its design,