The shelf-to-screen shift: How packaging is powering D2C brands in a quick commerce world

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Late in 2018, when Angad Soni was preparing to launch Sepoy & Co., his botanical mixers startup, he was sure of two things: one, he had to get the formulation of his first product, tonic water, right. Two, the bottle in which it would be sold had to stand out.The target audience was consumers of premium gins who had likely sampled high-quality tonics on trips abroad, but had to settle for mass-market brands in India sold in plastic bottles, or in cans, such as Schweppes.

Alongside the taste, Soni knew “it was paramount that we figure out our packaging from day zero”.Glass bottles were the clear choice, but had to grab attention. So, Soni worked with Olsson Barbieri, a design agency in Norway that had designed bottles and packaging for several Norwegian, Scandinavian and European spirit and beverage brands, to create Sepoy's signature fluted and ribbed glass bottle.But manufacturing that design in India proved far more complicated.

Soni’s bottle-making partner, Hindustan National Glass & Industries took months of convincing. “They said the vertical lines that you have are not possible, get rid of them.

But that’s an integral part of the design,” recalls the Sepoy founder.The effort eventually paid off. Today, the distinctive bottle is closely associated with the Sepoy brand, which closed the last fiscal year with ₹17.5 crore in revenue.Sepoy, a bootstrapped brand, is not alone in putting so much into getting its packaging right.

Across the board, packaging has become central to making brands stand out, as they vie with each other to grab consumers by the eyeballs.And that may be part of the reason why India’s packaging industry is booming. It was estimated to be worth ₹5.4 trillion in