Episode 1299: Turn Packaging Into a Marketing Advantage with Jason Wong

Your packaging may be costing you sales, attention, and margin before a customer even tries your product. In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Seth Greene interviews Jason Wong, Founder and CEO of Paking Duck, who discusses his transition from selling products to manufacturing custom packaging for consumer brands. He explains how factory-direct production, e-commerce experience, and attention to design details can help brands improve packaging quality while reducing costs. Jason also shares how packaging can support social media marketing, strengthen the customer experience, and help growing brands prepare for retail scale. Key Takeaways: → Packaging can influence marketing performance. → Better packaging can enhance product presentation. → Packaging should enhance the unboxing experience. → Strong design details can increase perceived value. → Factory-direct sourcing can reduce packaging costs. Jason Wong is an operator with a background spanning growth marketing, operations, and manufacturing. He is the CEO and founder of Pughaus, a holding company for a portfolio of consumer brands and supply chain service providers. Under the Pughaus umbrella, Jason launched Saucy, a full-service sourcing and logistics firm that helps brands identify the right supply-chain partners and drive cost efficiencies. In 2023, he introduced Paking Duck, Saucy’s packaging manufacturing arm, delivering factory-direct pricing and production solutions tailored to emerging brands. Jason’s CPG investments focus on backing category challengers led by AAPI founders. Notable investments include Doe Lashes, Fly by Jing, Nectar Hard Seltzer, Kaja Beauty, and Awkward Essentials. He has also invested in e-commerce martech companies, including Triple Whale, Postscript, Skio, Icon, Octane AI, Siena CX, Social Snowball (acquired), and Lyvecom (acquired). Connect With Jason: Website: https://www.pug.haus/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pug X: https://x.com/eggroli

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Sharkpreneur Podcast with Kevin Harrington and Seth Green. Kevin Harrington is the inventor of the infomercial, one of the original sharks from the hit TV show Shark Tank, and has generated over $5 billion in TV and digital direct response sales. Seth Green is the world's first trusted authority on cutting-edge direct response marketing, a bestselling author, and the only three-time marketer of the year nominee. On the podcast, Kevin and Seth interview sharkpreneurs who share straight talk on what it takes to explode your business.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Forty-nine faces looked to him in triumph. Over the last 12 months, they had each taken turns and promoted his business for a week at a time, driving over $987,342 in revenue. What if you had a network of 50 centers of influence who promoted your business every week for a year? Grab your copy of the number one Amazon bestselling book, The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with a Podcast at 33% off the Amazon price by going to ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Again, that website for 33% off the Amazon price is ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Welcome to the Sharkpreneur Podcast. This is your co-host Seth Green. Today, I've got the good fortune to be welcoming back a repeat guest, Jason Wong, who I believe

• 1:18Speaker 01

  was episode 818 a number of years ago, who's back to talk to us about what he's up to now at Packing Duck. Jason, thank you so much for coming back.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  It is our pleasure. So for those of folks who haven't heard episode 818, give us a refresher, a short version of your story, kind of how it got to where you are, and then we'll talk about what you're up to now.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  100%. So back when you interviewed me back in 2022, I was running an e-commerce business, selling eyelashes online, selling beauty products online. And that business was great. I did that business for eight years, and now I've moved on to running a manufacturing business. So I bought out the supplier that was supplying me at my beauty company for packaging, and now I run a packaging company called Packing Duck. We manufacture custom packaging for all sorts of brands, from shopping bags to shampoo bottles to, you know, the boxes that your eyeglasses came in. We do it all.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Awesome. That is absolutely incredible. I love the kind of going up the supply chain, vertical integration type of thing. Um, let's talk about what is, who's an ideal client for you?

• 2:32Speaker 02

  I mean, really, anyone that needs packaging will be any consumer brand. So I mean, the reason why I picked this industry is because I had a revelation that, you know, when I was selling products, a beauty product, I had a very limited amount of people that could be my ideal customers. And that number actually changes every single year as people mature, they change their taste. But packaging is one of those things that every single consumer brand on the market needs. It doesn't matter if you're selling a toothbrush to a washing machine or a TV, you all need packaging for it. And so I realized that the opportunity here was a lot bigger. So it's really anyone that sells products online.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Um, that's awesome. Now theoretically, I'll play devil's advocate for a minute if that's okay.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  I am assuming that you're probably not dealing with people who's starting their business for the very first time, first product. They're probably already existing. So do they have packaging already when they come to you?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  A lot of our customers do, but we certainly do work with a lot of brands who are just starting out. They have an idea. They're like, hey, Jason, I have this idea to start this brand and I can only order 2,000 boxes. That's perfectly fine with us. We just can't take on anyone who's ordering five boxes or 10 boxes because, you know, truthfully, we don't make any money on that.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Understood. And what is their biggest challenge?

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Uh, I think the biggest challenge right now is that a lot of people who are manufacturing packaging or getting packaging for their products are actually not going to the factories directly. That's number one. So we own the factory. We work directly with the customers to make the products. A lot of brands actually get their packaging from whoever's their main supplier for their products. So for example, um, if I was selling eyeglasses, typically I'll go to the person who's making my eyeglasses to make the packaging. It's natural that they would know who's best, right? But most of the time, those type of suppliers are charging more than 40, 50% on the packaging that they source for you because they're not making it in-house. And so number one, Is that we are very, very competitive on rates because we're the factory direct. Number two is that a lot of people don't understand that packaging actually has a huge impact on marketing.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Right? Right now, a lot of people's traffic and conversions coming through social media, through short form videos, reels, YouTube shorts and whatnot. And so you only have such a small window to capture someone's attention. And what I see a lot of brands do is focusing on unboxing experience that really keep people uh uh keep people's attention uh as well as making them stop scrolling. That's really, really key part.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  That is awesome. I love the idea of using packaging as part of your marketing. Um. How are how are you getting the word out? How are people finding you?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  So we've been in business for about three years now. We have never spent a single dollar on pay marketing. Um. Every single one of our clients have either came in through referrals or they have came in through watching my videos. So I made maybe one or two videos every single day for the last two years about packaging. And for the most part, packaging videos are boring, right? Like, no one cares about how things are manufactured. But I found that there is actually a way to make manufacturing or boring videos interesting. So I would do breakdowns on how does Rolex make their green boxes? How much does it cost to make the Apple iPhone box that everyone loves and stores in their bedroom? I I will break down how brands are using packaging as a marketing lever.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  And those type of videos are getting tens of millions of views across our social media platform, which in turn brings in traffic for us.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. Now, um, well, how do you? There are obviously other companies that provide packaging services. Um. How do you differentiate yourself?

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. So there's a few ways. And that the key thing about our business is that we have to do every single one of these points exceptionally well in order to stand out. Number one is, of course, pricing. Right? In a in the e-commerce industry, margins are everything. It's already a low margin business. Packaging has to be a a place where people can find the most uh cost efficient ways to present their product, but also store their product. So number one is pricing. Because we do. Everything within the supply chain, except for chopping down a tree and turning it into pulp. We make everything in-house. That allows us to give the best pricing to our customers. Number two is the attention to detail. Uh, we understand how important packaging is for transporting, for storing, and also for presenting your product. We pay attention to things that customers typically might not pay attention to.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  And the way that we're able to do this is because every single person on our team, or at least our senior and exec team, are ex Shopify operators. We have all ran our own brands. We have done our own research. We've done developments for the last decades or so. And so we're able to see things from a different lens than most manufacturers who are, you know, most manufacturers have never done e-commerce themselves. Everyone in our company have built our own brand, either exited, sold it, or or whatever, and then be and then came into this business. So that's number two. Number three is that we're able to consolidate a lot of different functions under one single roof. We do design. We have our own design program. We do the manufacturing, but we also have our own shipping company.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  So from the concept of having a packaging all the way to shipping it to your front door, we handle it under one roof. And by doing that, we're able to get way better rates for our customers, but also consolidate the vendor relationship. So imagine talking to one single person instead of talking to four different people for the same shipment. Right? How much time does that save for you? How much money does that save for you? Right?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  It's I would imagine it saves a ton of time and money, which is part of your value add. Um, you've worked with so many companies now. Can you give us an example of one? What they were kind of struggling with or what their challenge was when they came to you? Kind of how you were able to help them and then kind of what it looked like on the other side?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  For sure. So a few brands that comes to mind would be a brand called Array. Array is a supplement company. They do about nine figures in revenue every single year. Uh, when they came to us, their packaging was not in the best shape, right? They they were again, going through the same model where I mentioned they were going through their main supplier that was making their supplements to also do their box. And so because of that, they're not able to pay attention to the small details. Where we were able to improve their packaging by increasing the weight of the paper. So it's a little bit sturdier, right? You ever felt a box is a little flimsy? That's something you get from Amazon versus a box you get from a nice place? We transform from A to B while cutting their cost down by twenty percent.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Right, we were able to improve it in quality and decrease down rate. And that's really my main goal is that every single customer that comes through our door. If we're able to achieve that same effect for you, that's what I feel like success is.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  That is absolutely incredible. Love that. So. What is, you help so many people. What's the biggest challenge you're facing now?

• 9:23Speaker 02

  You know, I, I think every single level of the business growth unlocks a different set of challenges. Right. It's just stating the obvious, but what I didn't realize was just how. Often those challenges would come and, and how severe they would be, right? Like at first it was like, okay. We don't really have a good system in place. Now we have a great system. Now the system is so efficient that. There's way too much things for our human staff to do. Now we hire the human staff to, to handle the demand. Now there's. Um, too many people in the kitchen. How do we compartmentize the right team for the right functions? And then.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  And then it's about hiring the best people, right? Like at a certain, at a certain point of your business is about hiring the best people, best operators for each team. And. You know, it's, it's been a quite a challenge to find A players consistently. And sometimes people interview very well, but in actuality, they might, they, they might not perform the best. And so I think our biggest bottleneck right now is hiring the best people for our team. Um, we never really had challenges with getting the right amount of customers. We've always had a lot of customers from day one. Fortunately, because of our background in e-commerce, I just called up 50 of my friends who are in the space and said, hey, can I do packaging for you? So we never had a demand problem. We've always had a supply problem, which is we just couldn't keep up with the demand.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  That is a wonderful problem to have you solve the most important one first. So. Give me, tell me, um, a little bit about, I mean, your passion's obvious. What do you like best about what you're doing?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  I I love being able to have a huge impact on every single one of our customers, whether that that is a new product that they're launching, whether that is them getting into Target or Walmart. And seeing the the work that we do on retail shelf is extremely, extremely fun for us. Um, it's also, I I think just being able to make an impact on our customers at a larger scale, right? Like when I mentioned how much money people save with us for a nine-figure brand, we're talking about six to eight, sorry, six to seven figures in savings that we would cut for them over the next few years, just by fixing their packaging, right? No one's gonna hate you for putting an extra million dollars in their pocket.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  And so being able to do that consistently over and over again has been very, very impactful.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  I bet. Well, you got an incredible journey, incredible story. Love the evolution. For who's an ideal client for you?

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Uh, we love clients that are either in retail or getting into retail, particularly because the volume is there. We love uh being able to leverage their volume to get the best rate for them. But also for us, we're in a volume game, right? In manufacturing, we're making, you know, two pennies here, three pennies there. The most ideal customers are anyone that can bring volume to us.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Awesome. Well, we greatly appreciate it. Your time is incredibly valuable. Thank you for spending some of it with us. For our folks watching or listening who might be interested, where is the best place for them to go?

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Uh, our Instagram is Duck, D U C K. And our website is packingduck, that's P A K I N G D U C K dot com. Both of those places will find our work and also how to find us and submit an inquiry.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Awesome. This has been Seth Green with Jason Wong. Jason, thanks again for joining us.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Thank you, everybody, for watching or listening. We'll talk to you or see you next time.

• 12:57Speaker 03

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