Doaa bin Thabit, founder, author, and consultant at Saudi Arabia-based Packageha in a candid interaction with Benjamin Daniel shares what triggered her to take up brand designing for those companies bereft of one
Packageha is a start-up packaging service provider that customises packaging for home and small business. Packageha dedicates a percentage of its profits for social purposes focusing on creating a culture of giving among school children by repackaging used, like-new toys and distributing them to deprived children. Packageha is a winner of the MIT EF Saudi Arabia 2017 idea track and www.packageha.com is the first and only Arabic website offering customized packaging with the lowest minimum order quantity.
Doaa bin Thabit, founder, author, and consultant at Saudi Arabia-based Packageha
Benjamin Daniel (BD): Tell me about Packagehaís interesting history.
Doaa bin Thabit (Doaa): The idea started from my passion for package design. Throughout my life, packaging has been an element of choosing and comparing products for me. I love to explore creative package design ideas. I always appreciated good packaging.
BD: So, how did you start?
Doaa: I always believed that packaging sends out the first message to the customer thus creating the first impression that leads to buying the product. So, I started by putting my ideas together and submit them to MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) Saudi Arabia, which is part of a global network of chapters dedicated to the promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation worldwide. Winning the competition in 2017 was a good beginning to my business. The idea also started from a desire to empower women and young entrepreneurs and to enable those productive families and small businesses to upgrade their products by providing a unique contemporary design that creates an identity for their products and printing their packages at the lowest cost and quantity possible to suit their basic needs.
BD: How did you work your idea out?
Doaa: The idea was to have a platform with three steps where small businesses can choose the products, make customized branding to it, and then put in their address so that I can ship it to them. We struggled to work with third-party packaging printers, so we made an agreement with Canon Middle East and purchased a digital press to do the printing in-house. The digital press turned out to be a good decision as it does not require technical while it can print carton boards of up to 300 gsm and that was a perfect fit for my clients.
BD: I see some toys here, some samples?
Doaa: Yes, these are all used, donated toys. They were collected as part of Packageha’s social activities. Packageha redirects a percentage of its net profits to fund social activities. For instance, at the moment we are focusing on creating a culture of giving, among school children as they donate their used, like-new toys to less privileged children; under this initiative, Packageha distributes dedicated packages titled “play with love” among school students who fill these packages with their donated toys and storybooks. We then repackage it in this box and write their name down to be gifted from them to children less fortunate. We start from schools to create a generation that enjoys charity and preserves the dignity of their peers. Unboxing this surprising gift box of toys creates a peak of happiness for those children and implants love in their small hearts and this moment is what we thrive to create for all less fortunate children.
BD: Suppose someone wants to order, do you have a design library?
Doaa: We have a simple design library. We believe in simplicity though and do not offer too many options. Productive families need some handholding and comprehensive solutions that fit the product they aim to sell. Price is certainly a major constraint that we completely resolve for them since we allow them to print smaller quantities while maintaining a low cost per unit. We take them through simple wizards to choose different product types, designs, size, and customization to add their brand and identity on the package to reflect their product quality.
BD: Does your customer base include clients from outside the region?
Doaa: For the present, we have customers from all over the Gulf area.
BD: So, do you ship die-cut, flat boxes?
Doaa: Yes! The idea is to have a flat foldable paper pack that you can fold yourself. That allows us to ship it easily throughout the region with minimum cost, plus they don’t need a large storage area, one shelf is enough! The shipment is sent as a stack of boards that can be easily assembled; folded and so they can place their products before fulfilling the final packaging.
BD: Are you going to stick to carton-based packaging? Or are you into personalising labels and other formats as well?
Doaa: We have three products. We have cartons, we also have labels with certain shapes like rectangle, square and circle; two sizes each and we have short and long sleeves too.
BD: I am fascinated, with everything that you said starting with the name of your company.
Doaa: Yes. Packageha in casual Arabic means ‘package it’. Our Packageha logo has a smiley face on it, which denotes creating happiness.
BD: What challenges have you faced or are facing as a woman entrepreneur especially from a newly opened region for women like KSA?
Doaa: As a woman entrepreneur in KSA, I have to admit that I received a lot of support throughout my business launch journey. Starting from the time I had this business idea, which won an MIT Enterprise Forum Saudi prize, I received support through all the government procedures and logistics to start my company and even ending up with being incubated by Badir Technology National Incubator. Being a woman in the printing and packaging field is quite unique and rare as this industry, which is male-dominated and mostly by non-Saudi males. Packageha, in particular, is also unique in the sense that it creates a completely new market for customised packaging that is tailored to the customer’s own brand and logo. Thus, it is technically a blue-ocean concept that breaks into new boundaries of packaging in small quantities while maintaining affordable cost to my clients. Customised packaging on the client side requires a lot of market awareness and education to be able to add value. It also forced me to forge many partnerships with other printers to minimize the cost to my clients, which was not an easy job at all.
BD: What message can you share for budding women entrepreneurs from our MEA region?
Doaa: You can do it! This is the central message I would share to all women entrepreneurs from the MEA region. Spend your life doing creative things, in making a change; on empowering people around you and on spreading happiness by adding a social dimension to your business idea. It might be hard in the beginning, as you may feel insecure, losing the monthly income that you are used to, but it’s worth the try. It’s a matter of time and you will realise how much you have been missing. Start your business today; don’t procrastinate!