Product Labeling in Retail & eCommerce Business [Helpful Guide]

What’s the thing that a buyer notices at first when he/she looks at a product placed over the shelf of a retail store? It’s the product’s label. Same is the scenario when a buyer looks at the image of a product in a shopping site. The element on which the buyer focuses at first, and the most, when looking at a product image, is its label.

So, even if you are selling your products online, it’s important to get your labels right. In fact, for eCommerce businesses, right labeling of products is even more important than in the case of offline businesses. That’s because, in a physical store, a buyer can pick up your product and have a close look at it. The buyer’s purchase decision here would be based on his/her experience while handling the real product. In contrast, in online shopping, the customer’s buying decision depends solely on his/her experience while looking at the product’s picture, its label in the picture, and the information given on the label.

Designing quality product labels for your items to be displayed online, is really important because labels perform some crucial functions. Once you understand these key functions of labeling, you will know, to what degree labeling your products right is vital for your eCommerce business.

Key Functions of Labeling:

1. Creates the First Impression

“The first impression is the last impression”, and this first impression for your product is created by its label. The better you design your product label, the better will be your prospective buyer’s impression about your product, when he/she looks at its image online.

2. Identifies the Product and Brand

By looking at the label, a buyer comes to know what the product is, and to which brand it belongs. So, when a consumer browses through your site for a particular product of a particular brand, he/she would be able to identify the desired item only with the help of its label.

3. Identifies the Grade of an Item

If you sell a specific item in different qualities, it’s the label through which buyers would be able to distinguish between the various qualities of the same product. For instance, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. offers three kinds of tea, and to distinguish between the types, it employs labels of three different colors – Yellow, Red, and Green.

4. Provides Essential Information

In this age, consumers are increasingly conscious about, upon what they are investing their hard earned money. Online buyers research very carefully before picking up an item for purchase. The level of consciousness is even more if the product they are seeking is a food item, health product or a skin-care item. Online shoppers seek all information about a product, before deciding whether or not to buy it. And they get this information from the item’s label.

So, it’s important for you to state all necessary details about a product clearly on its label. Some of the essential information a product label provides are:

• Ingredients:

Consumers are smart and prefer to know what they are eating or buying. The label on an item displays the list of ingredients, thereby letting consumers know whether the item is healthy or not. Although buyers may not understand a few of the ingredient names on the product label, they can always do a Google search to learn more about the ingredients. Longer is the ingredient list, more are the chemicals in the item, and perhaps, worse is the product for an individual. The ingredient order also indicates the amount present in the item. The list begins with the ingredient that’s present in the largest quantity and moves down to the ingredient present in the least amount.

Buyers can check out if an item has any harmful ingredients through the label, especially if they are allergic to certain ingredients. For example, when buying a shaving cream or a shampoo online, a shopper can easily prevent a breakout by going through the ingredient list on the label.

So, you must mention all the product ingredients on the label, clearly and in the correct way. In your e-commerce site, you can implement functionalities like a 360-degree rotation of products, and the ability of users to zoom the packaging and label if desired. This would enable buyers to effortlessly read each and every information you have provided along with your product.

• Health Risks:

Labels help consumers avoid health risks. If an individual has allergies, or he/she should avoid certain ingredients in medicine or food or any other item, the individual can detect the risk with the help of labels.

In the labels of medicines and food products, certain ingredients like soy, nuts, and milk, are mentioned as potential allergy ingredients. However, this is not the case with body products. Shoppers with allergies need to go through the labels carefully and check out whether there are ingredients that can lead to any allergies.

Labels also keep consumers healthy by stating the expiration dates of products, so that buyers can avoid taking or eating expired items. In the case of medicines, labels tell their proper use and correct dosages.

So, it’s important to label your products correctly, to let customers know whether the item they intend to buy has any health risks for them or not. By labeling products rightly, you can keep customers healthy.

• Instructions:

Labels provide instructions on how to use a product. For example, the label of medicine helps the buyer know how to have it (chew or swallow?), when to take another dose and how much of the medicine to take. For other products too, instructions of use are quite important for customers, and the labels offer them this vital information.

When a prospective customer looks at your product image online, he/she may be expecting to find the instructions of using it on its label. So, ensure that your product labels are equipped with this valuable information.

• Warnings:

This is another crucial information offered by labels. Under warnings, the conditions for use, allergy warnings and possible side effects of the product are mentioned. For example, in case of medicines, the labels give warnings about what medicines should not be mixed, medicines harmful for specific conditions, like with alcohol in body, while pregnant or with heart troubles. Buyers must pay extra attention to such warnings.

When designing labels for your online shop products, ensure that all warnings are written out clearly on them. Online shoppers are likely to search for any warnings, and when they find them outlined properly, they would feel safer. This would also enhance their trust on your brand.

• Information needed by Law:

Labels also provide certain information needed by Law. An example of this is the statutory warning provided on the labels of specific items. As per law, it’s important to outline ‘Chewing Tobacco is Injurious to Health’ on the packaging or labeling of items with tobacco, and ‘smoking is injurious to health’ on cigarette packaging or labeling. In the same way, a proper statutory warning should be given on the labels of poisonous or hazardous products.

Ensure that the items displayed on your eCommerce store, carry the information needed by law (if applicable).

Last but not least, the right labeling can help your customers save money.

Thinking how? Many brands may offer products the same as yours (with the same ingredients and same quality), but for a greater price. Online shoppers prefer to compare products before buying. In this scenario, buyers can compare your product with others quite easily, when you have labeled your product properly. Labels display prices and also let buyers know if an item is on sale.

So, if you are truly offering products at reasonable and affordable rates in your online store, or offering items on sale, your products would surely grab the attention of potential buyers.

After knowing the vital role of labeling, you must be thinking about whether you have labeled your products right or not. If you find that your online shopping site is not fetching good conversions, there may be some problem with your product labeling. Or maybe, you are not effectively displaying the images of your products along with their labels. So, consider seeking the help of reliable product labeling professionals to redesign your labels. With the right labeling of your items, your e-commerce store would soon see stellar sales.

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/sales/retail/product-labeling