Guide To Product Packaging and Labeling

Consumerism is at its all-time high, standing out in a million other products similar to yours can be a real struggle. Now more than ever, brands are valuing their packaging and labeling a lot more than they did before. If you’re not pushing boundaries with the artwork and design of your product and packaging, take this as a sign to up your game and re-evaluate your approach. In this article, we’ll go over the steps you need to follow to create an eye-catching product label and package.

Product Packaging

We don’t often consider package design as a difficult creative job. Well, you might be surprised to learn that it does take quite a bit of effort! Blending colors, icons, logos, illustrations, and text on the bag to draw people’s attention is the job of a package designer. Beyond design, you also have a wide array of choices in packaging materials, such as folding carton boxes, plastic, fabric, and more.

There are three questions you must have the answer to before you start designing the packaging for a product.

Product Packaging: How Top Brands Design Memorable Unboxing Experiences to Delight Their Customers

What Is The Product?

This question may seem very basic but it’s crucial to help you determine if there are any logistical musts for your product packaging. For example, a delicate product may require more secure packaging like packing peanuts or a sturdy box. Something that is large or with odd dimensions, on the other hand, may require a custom packaging solution instead of a box, such as a fabric bag or aluminum can.

Read How to Package Odd-Shaped/Sized Objects for Shipping?

Who’s Your Customer?

The type of packaging is often dictated by who your buyer/customer is. Is the product supposed to be used by men, women, or both? Is it for children or adults? Is it geared towards people who are environmentally conscious? To those on a budget or with lots of disposable income?

Read The Effect of Versioned Packaging on Various Demographics

By answering these questions in preparation to design your packaging, you’re narrowing down things like the materials, colors, and overall design. Products for older adults may need larger text. Alternatively, items geared towards an affluent customer will need to consider materials that create a feeling of luxury.

How Are People Buying Your Product?

Is your product easily accessible? Are people exposed to your product at a supermarket, a boutique, or online?
You’re going to want to think about packaging differently if the product is going to be sold online and shipped than if it’s going to need to stand out from the competition on a big-box store shelf.

Read 10 Ways To Make Your Product Stand Out On The Shelf

If the product is being sold online, perhaps a box in which the item will be rattled or easily damaged while in transit may be a bad idea. If you’re limited on your budget, packing peanuts or wrapping the item in bubble wrap is a good alternative to other expensive materials. Those that will be on a boutique shelf will need to catch the eye of a buyer surrounded by cutesy items in cutesy packages.

Order your own branded packing and packing promotional items

Pro Tip: If printing on packaging is out of your budget, consider custom tape to use on blank boxes (applicable for online retailers) and/or stickers with your logo!

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Product Labeling

Product labeling is a part of the packaging of a product. Labeling is the written information on the packages. These written labels on the package cover important information which needs to be communicated to a customer. Product labeling is different from packaging. A product packaging might have the brand colors, the logo, and the material as well as the shape of the package, etc.

These are some of the technical details you should be considering when designing your labels.

Digital Printing: A Packaging Revolution

Colors

Following the advice above, if your product will be sold in stores then you want to use colors that will stand out and will make a statement. Additionally, when branding, you should stick to a color pallet of at least 3 colors and follow that throughout your labels and packaging. You will also need to have the CMYK values or Pantone Matching Values (PMS) colors for printing.

Read Psychology of Colour – How To Use It In Your Packaging Design

Fonts

The font should be legible and easy to follow throughout the label. Make sure it doesn’t clash with your logo if your logo is a typeface. Ensuring the font is the right size for the size of the product is also important, and you want to make sure that you have the rights to the font to avoid any legal issues.

Check Out How to Choose Brand Fonts for Packaging Design

Logo

Having your logo on the label is key, make sure it’s centered and represents your brand colors and aesthetics. For a smooth printing process, make sure your logo is a vector file.

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Conclusion

It’s advised to spend a good amount of time thinking about your packaging, more often than not, people chose the product that looks cool and interesting, especially on a shelf with other competition. Be strategic about choosing your colors, fonts, and artwork. It’s best to work with a designer that can execute the artwork and placement of your label, logo, and other necessary product information.

If your budget does not allow for hiring a designer, or if you’re product is sold online, for packaging we recommend getting branded packing tape, stickers, and stamps of your logo to easily brand your packaging on a budget. You can have stickers, pins, and other promo items printed by your local print shop.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

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For any inquiries, send us a message!

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send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com

Covid-19 Continues To Disrupt Supply Chains

The consequences of the pandemic when it comes to supply and manufacturing have been long lasting and it may be a while before we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. With the delays in transit times, shortages, low employment and more, many of us have had to practice patience or look for alternatives to continue business as usual. We’ll go through all the shortages that many of us are facing and give you a inside look into how it is affecting Los Angeles print shops like ours.

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The Domino Effect

In early 2021 as covid restrictions began lifting, we started to notice the biggest change in supply and demand. People’s spending habits not only shifted back to normal but in the case of eCommerce the changes show an astonishing increase in sales, which created more demand as the supply was running out.

More notably, we are seeing this play out with restaurants who are not only having a hard time hiring and retaining employees but are also experiencing a shortage in supply and slow shipping.

Read US consumer sentiment and behaviors during the coronavirus crisis

Rising Costs

With low inventory and manufacturing issues coupled with inflation many industries are raising manufacturing costs. You may be seeing this most notably with the price of food at your local supermarket.

For print shops across the US, costs have increased and we believe they will increase more as shortages continue. As an apparel business, you may be faced with the tough decision to either raise your prices or look for alternative styles that match your previous COG.

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How is The Shortages Affecting Apparel?

According to Forbe’s consumer report on apparel, the industry welcomes the rise in prices but remains tenuous. For a business like a print shop that offers t-shirts and hats, the story is a bit different. As a print shop and fulfillment business, we are in a tough position, however, we strive to work with our clients on finding solutions and weathering the storm.

Where do the shortages start?

The supply of garments are mostly imported from countries such as China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; where the Covid-19 restrictions are tougher and employers are forced to minimize their work force to avoid further spread of the virus.

Data from 2020

Besides the delays in manufacturing, we found that the primary reason for the shortages is delays in shipping. Because materials such as cotton is grown in one country and processed in another as well as the actual creation of the garment and then shipped to you (or us) for printing. The various stage of making apparel coupled with slow transit times are causing much of the shortages.

Furthermore, because of the increase in demand across the board, countries like China are having a hard time keeping up with the shipping due to delays of cargo containers. In 2020 containers were not being shipped back at the same rate they were arriving to our US ports, this has created a bottleneck effect and is contributing to delays.

In addition to delays, the cost of shipping containers has increased from $1,500 in early 2020 to now in 2021 at almost $9,000 per 40ft container. This is yet another reason why costs have gone up.

Read more about Why The Pandemic Has Disrupted Supply Chains

Unable To Meet Demand

During the early months into the pandemic, online shopping grew 32.4% and has overall helped the eCommerce sector for most industries including small independent apparel brands. Young people are moving away from traditional fast fashion retail stores and seeking unknown and more exclusive apparel brands.

Source: Digital Commerce 360 analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data

Due to high demand, we recommend to make a plan and order your apparel NOW while styles are still in stock or pre-order apparels in anticipation of further shortages.

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Conclusion

DON’T WAIT - Order what you need now or in advance to minimize wait times and secure inventory.

FIND ALTERNATIVES - Should specific garments not be available, talk with your screen printer or supplier to find the best alternative for what you are looking for. This issue may persist well into the following year, so finding an alternative could be your best bet.

RAISE YOUR PRICES - With inflation on the rise and the obvious increase in cost, it is a good idea to begin raising your prices incrementally and in anticipation for overall costs increasing.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

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Follow us on Instagram and Facebook!

For FAQ, check out our site!

For any inquiries, send us a message!

OR

send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com

eCommerce: Apparel Fulfillment Service

Fulfillment for a small clothing brand can be a challenging task, especially if you are receiving hundreds of orders in a single day and you’re competing with larger operations that may have more resources to get the orders out the door faster. In the age of instant gratification, small brands are having a harder time ensuring customer satisfaction when it comes to shipping efficiency. At Family Industries, we offer a solution to all of your fulfillment needs.

How Does It Work?

As a full-service print shop, we feature white-label fulfillment which means we not only print your merch but we also pick, pack, and ship your orders directly to the buyer. We also include any other promotional items such as pins or stickers and branded packaging. This allows you to focus on your business strategy and your creative process to push your sales, while we worry about getting those orders to your customers.

Integrations

We can connect directly to your e-commerce store and sync your product SKUs to begin receiving orders. Integration time may vary and depend on where the e-commerce store is hosted. In most cases, this can be done in a single day.

Invoicing / Restocking

We invoice your monthly for your orders and services, we also track your inventory so re-stocking is easy and we ensure you’re never sold out of your most popular items.

Client Services

We’re always here if you have questions or concerns, our goal is to ensure 100% satisfaction with all the brands we work with. While we don’t directly contact your customers, we are always here to address your concerns.

Shipping & Returns

We offer white-label shipping which means your brand logo, name, address, and phone number will be on the shipping labels as well as any other promotional items included in the package. We simply do the work for you ensuring tracking information is available for your client by alerting them via email.

Benefits of Fulfillment Services

Time

If you’re like most business owners, you have your hands in every aspect of your operation. As you continue to grow your brand, tasks such as shipping become a daily time-consuming chore that must be done in a timely manner. Most start-up brands eventually run into difficulties when it comes to shipping on-time and this also becomes something that can damage your brand and reputation. Not to mention, in order to survive you also need to be constantly innovating to retain those customers, therefore, time becomes of the essence. You will need to dedicate more time designing and/or scaling your business, and for this reason, you will need fulfillment to be done and taken care of in a timely manner.

Space

One of the many pain points of an eCommerce business is inventory and the capacity to store those items. With fulfillment services, you have the freedom to keep as much stock as possible, ensuring that you will not run out of the popular items in your catalog. This also prevents “out of stock” products and diminishes the amount of “stock availability” inquiries from potential buyers.

Shipping Rates

In many cases, fulfillment services will provide you with their negotiated shipping rates. If you’re a brand that is just getting started, chances are, your shipping rates will be high and you don’t have the leverage that some of these bigger companies have with a long record of packages shipped. In order to be able to negotiate a discounted rate, as a business owner, you would need to show the carrier that you have the volume they would like to see in order to offer you those discounts. With fulfillment services, discounted rates are almost always offered and can be highly beneficial economically.

Quality Assurance

Because printing and shipping are done in the same location, the quality of the product tends to be the main priority, and inspections are done prior to drop-shipping. The fulfillment process requires quality checks and ensures your buyers are happy with their purchase.

Re-Stocking

A fulfillment service company will keep track of your inventory and replenish it as needed to ensure you never run out. Restocking is generally done per SKU, calculating sales velocity and production time to ensure restocking is done on time before running out. This calculation can also be adjusted depending on the seasonality and other factors such as special sales days or in preparation for the holidays.

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If you’re thinking about using a fulfillment service, hit us up!



Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator