As a small, creative business, do you ever wonder what you can do to improve your packaging? Our amazing customers love to have a unique experience when opening up little packages and parcels from small businesses like mine and yours, so why not give them a proper, professional and fun experience whilst doing so? After all, the way your orders are packed, the way they look; it's all part of your brand - and we all know how important branding is!
1. Have you thought about tissue paper?
Custom tissue paper can be such a great way to strengthen your branding when packaging your orders, however, it can be a little pricey. The tissue in the above picture was gifted to me by No Issue and I still have quite a lot left! If you're not in the market for customised tissue paper quite yet, you could try coloured tissue paper to match your brand as close as possible. I use plain, baby pink tissue paper for smaller orders. I've had customers say to me that it's like opening up a small present when they receive an order from me!
2. What about some custom vellum wrap?
I absolutely LOVE how this custom vellum wrap turned out! After printing a few sheets for myself, I decided to pop this product up in my Etsy shop so that others can purchase it. It's smooth and translucent, making it perfect to add a professional touch to your packaging. I can imagine this working well with small accessories, jewellery, crystals, baked goods, candles, wax melts and more! I can pop your logo on as a repeat pattern, or, if you already have a design made up to fit an entire sheet, I can print it exactly as you'd like it! Feel free to contact me for more information or if you have any questions at all on this gorgeous vellum wrap.
3. Stickers! Personalised logo stickers!
You can never go wrong with a good sticker and I am in LOVE with these custom, coloured foil stickers in my shop. This adds such a professional and unique finishing touch to your orders. Attach it to your tissue or vellum paper to hold it together, pop it on the outside of your box, or use it to seal an envelope to add that special touch that your shoppers won't get elsewhere.
I love making these logo stickers for my clients. You can find them in my shop here if you would like to take a look. Simply send me your compatible logo design (if you don't have one, you can drop me a message and we can discuss alternative options, or even chat about my logo design services), and then I can send over a digital mockup to show you how your custom sticker would look once printed. Once everything has been confirmed by yourself, it's time for me to print, foil and ship them out to you!
4. Should I use boxes or envelopes?
That totally depends on what you're selling! Granted, there are some arguments for boxes - some can fit through letterboxes, they protect whatever's inside better than an envelope would, but ultimately, they are more expensive to send. If you are selling flat items such as art prints or greeting cards, I recommend a hard, board backed envelope. If you are selling anything larger, like notepads, enamel pins, keyrings, stationery, jewellery etc. then I definitely recommend a suitable box. You can decorate the envelopes and boxes however you'd like! Think washi tape, stickers, paper etc. I particularly like wrapping boxes up in wrapping paper just like in the photo above - this will really set your packages apart from the crowd and is less expensive than buying coloured boxes.
5. Do you sell greeting cards? How about some eco-friendly, removable stickers?
I've been using my own custom, peelable labels for my greeting cards for a few years now. They are a great eco-alternative to plastic waste and poly bags! They keep the greeting card and envelope together whilst also providing you with a bit of branding on the label too. I've recently added these to my shop so you can purchase a set. You can send me your logo, or just choose some text to have on the front and back of the label (as the label wraps around the card, half is shown on the front and the other half is shown on the back). They peel off so unbelievably easy, my customers and I have been so happy with them!
5. Invest in a graphic designer.
Maybe your product itself needs some branded packaging. For example, a cake sprinkles company called Get Sprinkled contacted me about designing this super fun advent calendar for them last year. We worked together so well and came up with a design that was suited to the vision that they had in mind - plus they sold out instantly ;)
If you're not comfortable with the design side of things, I highly recommend hiring a designer to help you out. A professionally designed product is far more likely to sell well than a badly designed one.
6. Have fun!
If you don't have the means to invest in your packaging right away - don't worry! These things take time and you can make small, gradual improvements over time. You can buy cheap, coloured tissue paper on Ebay, along with some generic stickers or packing tape, envelopes and boxes etc. Confetti is also super cheap, you can even make some yourself if you'd like to add a bit of sparkle to your packages. Etsy also has a great deal of small businesses who supply some gorgeous packaging items!
