10 Packaging Mistakes That Hurt Your Brand

Packaging is as much part of your brand as in-store experience. Packaging is your silent salesperson. Good packaging attracts customers due to its design, colours and overall aesthetic appeal.

Many customers would not even know what’s inside your package but just get excited with the overall outer appeal. Hence, good packaging speaks a thousand words for your brand. It’s not something you can give a side eye to.  It is more than a cardboard container, it’s the opportunity for a good first impression.

Good packaging develops customer trust and enhances brand visibility. However, many brands treat packaging as a second priority that hurts brand visibility and customer loyalty in the long run. In this article, we will understand the top packaging mistakes that brands make in 2025. 

Are You Making These Packaging Mistakes? 

Bad packaging will hurt your customer base and impact competitive advantage in the future. Despite having an exceptional product, sometimes bad packaging takes all the focus away. You may not even know what’s hurting your brand while you keep on losing customers.

Good packaging is the key to build customer trust, loyalty and foster engagement with the brand. Here are the top packaging mistakes that hurt brands significantly –

1. Overcomplicated Design in Packaging 

The first issue is overcomplicated design in packaging. Sometimes when you use too many visual elements at once, it becomes overwhelming for customers. They can’t comprehend what your brand stands for. 

2. Busy Design in Packaging

Too busy design can lead to confusion. It doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing that does deliver a good customer experience. Customers will have no idea what to focus on and what to look for in the packaging design.

What can you do:

• You should focus on keeping packaging designs minimalistic. 
• Too much text or visual elements can create clutter in the design. 
• Simple and minimalistic packaging is more appealing to customers rather than an overcomplicated design. 

3. Poor Design 

Packaging is a good way to promote your brand. Packaging helps in delivering the brand identity to customers. But poor packaging design doesn’t give brands the opportunity to build brand recognition. 

4. Weak Branding in Packaging

If you are not focusing on branding through your packaging, you may miss out on building customer trust. Poor packaging is just bad branding which leads to adverse consequences.

For instance, if your packaging does not highlight a clear logo of your brand, tagline or messaging, customers will have no clue. To make your packaging memorable, you need brand focused design. Good packaging refers to delivering clear brand identity to customers.

What can you do:

• Your logo should be wide enough to become visible to customers. It’s the face of your brand that should be clearly placed on the packaging material. 
• Keep a consistent packaging across all items. The size of packaging may differ, but the visual appeal of your packaging should be the same. 

5. Wasteful Packaging 

With wasteful packaging, your brand seems unreliable and careless to customers. If your packaging is not serving an aesthetic or functional purpose, it leaves a negative impression. 

6. Zero Sustainability Considerations

In an eco-conscious environment where customers are becoming more aware of wasteful vs usefulness, you need sustainable packaging solutions. Wasteful packaging refers to adding excessive packaging material that does not deliver any value to the customers. You don’t need to waste time, money and resources on packaging materials that are eventually going to affect your reputation negatively.

What can you do:

• Use sustainable packaging materials in place of wasteful packaging. 
• Keep your packaging strategy simple. It should focus on delivering brand value and identity. 
• You should strip away the use of styrofoam and bubble wrap which create extra clutter while unboxing. 

7. Unclear Visuals 

If you are showing exaggerated images and visuals on the packaging which is not actually true, it will create a bad impression on customers. The visuals and images should not be misleading. You risk disappointing customers by showing larger sizes of the product on packaging. They will expect to see a similar sized product which consequently disappoints them. 

8. Misleading Visuals

Misleading visuals create a bad reputation for your brand. Hence, being true to your brand and customers is what you need to show in your packaging as well.

What can you do:

• Use high-quality true imagery on your packaging that accurately shows your product to customers.

• Customers will know exactly what to expect when they see the true image of a product on packaging.

• Keep the purchase process transparent for customers. Showing them a thing and delivering yet another can affect your brand’s reputation negatively. 

9. Lack of Durability Testing

Many brands focus more on aesthetics than durability. Your packaging design should be strong enough to provide adequate protection to the product. If packaging material is not durable, it would impact the product delivery and create a bad user experience. Using appropriate packaging quality will elevate the positive experience of customers.

What can you do:

• Conduct rigorous testing of the packaging material to check if it will last long.
• Aesthetics are important but so is durability. 
• You should not choose a bad quality packaging material in the first place. Research good packaging materials for your product niche.

10. Poor Unboxing Experience

Sometimes the unboxing experience really frustrates users to the core. You should understand the customer experience and journey while unboxing packaged products from your brand. Adding a lot of layers for securing the box leads to an uneven unboxing experience. You can use collapsible boxes to ensure an easy assembly and user-friendly unboxing experience. It benefits both brands as well as customers.

What can you do:

• You can do a blind testing to see how unboxing creates a positive user experience.
• You can add aesthetically pleasing elements to your packaging to improve customer experience.
• Remove any unnecessary taping or protection if it’s not required. 

To Sum Up

Aesthetically pleasing and sturdy packaging are today’s demand. Customers do not expect their products ruined on the way during delivery. This happens because of using flimsy packaging material. Your packaging speaks for your brand. It’s a face of your brand that connects customers to you. Packaging is something that makes or breaks the reputation of your brand.

Providing brand-focused packaging is crucial in 2025 where customers are highly woke. For efficient packaging solutions and aesthetic designs, you can consult our experts at VerveBranding, a prominent logo design company in India. We can help you with branding solutions like logo design, packaging design, UI/UX and more.