Make your packaging transparent

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📝 Context

Topic: Product
For: B2C
Research date: February 2026
Universities: Vienna University of Economics and Business, City University of London.

You’re shopping for chocolates, and come across two brands at the same price, one in a blue plastic box, and the other in a transparent plastic bag.

Chances are you’ll choose the second option, as the science says transparent packaging is more likely to attract us.

P.S.: When using color in your packaging, use dark colors to make your product seem more effective (unless you're worried people will think about its risks or side effects).

📈 Recommendation

Use transparent packaging or add a transparent cut-out window to your packaging for products. If your product isn’t visually appealing (e.g. frozen gravy), then stick to closed packaging.

People will be more likely to choose your product.

🎓 Findings

• People find more attractive, are more likely to choose, and are more interested in buying food products with transparent packaging (e.g. see-through packaging or a cut-out window), compared to products with packaging they can’t see through.

• As part of a series of 7 experiments on various household food items, researchers found that:

  • When an item had transparent, instead of covered packaging, people:

    • Were 4x more likely to choose it

    • Were 40.6% more interested in buying it

    • Thought the item was 67.2% more attractive and felt ownership of it

• The effect:

  • Disappears when people are buying an item for someone else.

  • Reverses if the product itself doesn’t look nice. For example, people were 3.5% less interested in buying a vegetable stew in transparent packaging.

🧠 Why it works

• We consider product packaging as a barrier between us and a product. While covered packaging hides what’s inside, transparent packaging removes that barrier, letting us see the actual item.

• Because we can see the actual item, we feel more ownership towards it, even before buying it. This makes us more interested in buying the product.

• Since we can see the item inside, we also feel more in control and give more attention to what’s inside.

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✋ Limitations

• The experiments focused on everyday food items (e.g. cinnamon, muesli, candy, and cookies). It’s unclear how much this can be broadened to other types of items like toiletries or technology products.

• The research looked mostly at items people hadn’t already used or tried. It’s unclear if the effect holds for returning buyers.

• The study didn’t look at how much of the packaging needs to be transparent, or where a cut-out should be positioned. It’s unknown if more transparency in packaging will increase the effect or not.

👀 Real-life example

Asian noodles and sauces brand Omsom uses completely covered packaging for their products.

❌ Issue: The packaging makes it impossible for shoppers to see the product inside.

✅ Solution: Omsom can optimize their packaging by:

• Introducing transparent packaging, or a transparent cut-out window on their boxes and packets, to make more of the content visible.

• Simplifying the design of their packaging, to increase how much people are willing to pay for the item.

• Increasing the color saturation on images of their jars and bottles, to make them seem larger and increase how much people are willing to pay for the product.

🔍 Study type

Lab and online experiments.

📖 Research

A window of opportunity: transparent packaging affects product preference via psychological ownership. International Journal of Research in Marketing (February 2026).

🏫 Researchers

• Eva Marckhgott. Vienna University of Economics and Business

• Bernadette Kamleitner. Vienna University of Economics and Business

• Zachary Estes. Bayes Business School, City, University of London

Remember: This is a new scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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🎓 It took me, a PhD analyst, and a marketing pro 11.5 hours to accurately turn this 18 page research paper into this 3min insight. 

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