Why None of These Pet Wipe Brand Stands Out at Shelf

These pet wipe brands have a visibility problem, and better front panels won’t fix it. When packs sit low on the shelf with only their ends exposed, most branding disappears. That’s not a design problem; it’s a shopping-context problem. Want packaging that performs in the real world? Read on to see what’s missing.

Description

Great packaging is designed for the shelf where consumers actually make decisions.

Pet grooming wipes expose this problem perfectly. Large bulk packs often sit on lower shelves with only the end of the package visible. That means the beautifully designed front panel the one everyone spent months perfecting may barely enter the shopper’s field of view.

That creates an opportunity. Branding, product identification, and key benefits should extend to the surfaces consumers can actually see. If the “butt end” of the pack is what faces shoppers, it needs to work just as hard as the front.

This is why understanding the demand moment matters. Packaging needs to perform within real merchandising conditions, competitive sets, and compressed decision windows.

The lesson is simple: don’t design packaging from a conference room. Get into stores, understand how the product is merchandised, and design around shelf realities.

Video Transcript

00:00:00 Hey everybody, it's Shopping with
00:00:01 Christie. I'm at PetSmart today and I'm
00:00:02 looking at grooming supplies for pets
00:00:07 and mostly dogs because cats groom
00:00:09 themselves.
00:00:11 >> Look at that, huh?
00:00:12 >> So, let's take a look and there's one
00:00:14 thing I really want to point out to you
00:00:16 because it's something that I noticed as
00:00:18 a consumer, but we've recently had to
00:00:21 really think about and design around
00:00:24 related to one of these categories here.
00:00:26 Let's take a look.
00:00:29 Look at how many shampoos and grooming
00:00:32 supplies there are for dogs. Can you
00:00:34 believe it? There's actually quite a few
00:00:36 brands that I would recognize even for
00:00:38 humans. There are pet specific brands,
00:00:41 for example, Scout's Honor. TropiClean
00:00:44 is actually a pet specific brand, but
00:00:46 you know, some of these brands you're
00:00:47 going to recognize. You know that one,
00:00:49 Chai. You know this one, Burt's Bees.
00:00:52 You know this one, Mrs. Meyer's, but of
00:00:55 course, this isn't personal care for
00:00:57 people. It's for home care, but they've
00:00:58 gone into pet, which I find very
00:01:00 interesting. Let's see who else we want
00:01:01 to talk about here. Earth Rated. Yeah,
00:01:04 baby. Buying some today. But, here is
00:01:08 the other part, the more convenient side
00:01:10 of grooming, which are wipes. And this
00:01:11 is what I want to point out to you guys.
00:01:13 Let's say you're consumer and you're
00:01:15 shopping and you're sort of figuring out
00:01:18 that as you have a dog and summer's upon
00:01:20 us and you're going to take your dog to
00:01:21 the dog park and they run around in the
00:01:24 pea gravel if your dog park is like mine
00:01:26 and their paws get dusty. That's
00:01:28 annoying and they get in your car and
00:01:30 it's all gross and dirty.
00:01:31 >> GOT THE CAR?
00:01:32 >> OH, WHAT AM I YELLING AT YOU FOR? You're
00:01:34 a dog.
00:01:35 >> Well, guess what? There's solution for
00:01:36 that and it's called a grooming wipe.
00:01:38 It's wipes, but for your dogs and you
00:01:41 could use them all over, but they're
00:01:43 great solution for those moments when
00:01:45 you just want a quick refresh of your
00:01:47 dog's paws. This is the set for that. I
00:01:49 can't even read them. The way this
00:01:51 retailer, other than the small set which
00:01:53 are sort of in the merchandiser are our
00:01:55 ready cases, those are the of travel
00:01:57 packs and small packs. But the big bulk
00:01:59 packs, the things you might use every
00:02:01 day, they're on the second to bottom
00:02:02 shelf. I can only see sort of the tail
00:02:05 end of the pack. I can't see, literally,
00:02:08 it's tough. And so, wouldn't there be a
00:02:10 brand advantage to actually having some
00:02:13 strong communication and some strong
00:02:16 branding right there on, let's call it,
00:02:18 the butt end of the pack. Yes, please.
00:02:21 Top Paw does that a little bit, although
00:02:23 I don't know, it's hard to read from
00:02:24 here. TropiClean has a little there, but
00:02:27 I just think this is tough relative to
00:02:29 other categories. So, my plea to all
00:02:31 branding experts and marketing
00:02:34 innovators and agencies like us, really
00:02:37 think about the context of the shopping
00:02:39 set when you are designing. Well, the
00:02:41 story is, don't design in a vacuum. Get
00:02:44 out in the store. This is why I'm always
00:02:46 in the stores, making sure that we
00:02:47 really understand that demand moment and
00:02:50 the shopping moment when a consumer is
00:02:53 actually making their choice. You've got
00:02:55 3 seconds. Don't forget the realities of
00:02:57 the shelf. Bye, everybody.

Imtiaz Nabi

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