How to Choose Custom Packaging for Your Product
Choosing the right custom packaging involves balancing product protection, brand presentation, budget, and logistics. This guide walks you through the decision process step by step, from identifying your requirements to preparing artwork files for production.
Step 1: Define Your Product Protection Needs
Start with what your packaging actually needs to do. Ask these questions:
- Is the product fragile (glass, ceramics, electronics)?
- Is it sensitive to moisture, light, or temperature?
- How heavy is it? What compression strength does the box need?
- Will it ship via ground, air, or both?
- Does it need tamper-evident or child-resistant features?
Fragile products need corrugated or rigid packaging with foam inserts. Lightweight soft goods can go in a mailer box or poly mailer. Food products need food-safe materials with appropriate barrier properties.
Step 2: Align with Your Brand Identity
Your packaging communicates your brand before the customer sees the product. Consider:
- Price positioning: Luxury brands use rigid boxes, foil stamping, and soft-touch finishes. Value brands use kraft and clean, minimal printing.
- Sustainability story: If eco-consciousness is part of your brand, use kraft, recycled board, and call out FSC certification on the package.
- Unboxing experience: Direct-to-consumer brands benefit from interior printing, tissue paper, and insert cards. Retail products focus on exterior shelf impact.
- Color and typography: Match your packaging Pantone colors to your brand guidelines. Consistency across web, product, and packaging builds recognition.
Step 3: Set Your Budget
Packaging costs vary widely based on material, structure, printing, and finishing. General ranges per unit:
- Plain kraft mailer box: $0.50-1.50
- Printed corrugated mailer: $1.20-3.00
- Printed folding carton: $0.40-2.00
- Rigid box with lid: $3.00-12.00
- Rigid box with magnetic closure: $5.00-15.00
These ranges assume quantities of 100-500 units. Pricing improves significantly at 1,000+ units. Teal Packaging has no minimum order quantity, so you can start small and scale up.
Step 4: Choose Your Material
- Kraft paperboard: Natural brown, eco-friendly, good for minimalist designs. 300-400gsm.
- SBS (Solid Bleached Sulfate): White, smooth, excellent for vibrant printing. 14pt-18pt. The standard for retail folding cartons.
- Corrugated (E-flute): Lightweight with built-in cushioning. Best for mailer boxes and shipping packaging.
- Corrugated (B or C-flute): Thicker, stronger. For heavy products and shipping boxes.
- Rigid greyboard (2mm): Premium weight and feel. For luxury products and gift packaging.
Step 5: Consider MOQ and Lead Time
Most packaging suppliers require minimum orders of 500-1,000 units. If you are launching a new product, testing a design, or running a small business, this can be a barrier.
Teal Packaging has no minimum order quantity. Order 25 boxes to test your packaging concept, then scale up once you are confident in the design. Standard production is 7 business days with free shipping.
Step 6: Prepare Your Design Files
For the smoothest production process, prepare your artwork files following these guidelines:
- File format: Adobe Illustrator (.ai) or PDF with fonts outlined
- Color mode: CMYK (not RGB)
- Resolution: 300 DPI minimum for all images and graphics
- Bleed: 3mm (0.125 inches) bleed on all sides that extend to the edge
- Safe zone: Keep important text and logos at least 5mm from trim lines
Do not have a designer? Teal Packaging provides free dieline creation and design support with every order. Send us your logo, brand colors, and a rough description of what you want, and our team will create a print-ready layout for your approval.
