Spectrum of Packaging from Simple to Excessive

— Implications in modern packaging of a Chinese allusion “Keep the fancy case but give back the valuable pearl…”

There’s a household idiom in Chinese which goes as follows:

About 2,300 years ago, a jewelry dealer from Chu state (of the ancient China) traded pearls in Zheng state. One day, he had a very precious pearl.
In order to sell it at a premium price, he decided to make a fancy box for it. He had a top carpenter make an exquisite box with rare wood, then employ a top craftsman to carve delicate patterns top and elaborately decorate it with superior perfume and gem stones. The dealer then put the pearl in and was confident of the packaging.

A person from Zheng State was deeply enamored by the pretty case and bought it for a high price after some bargaining.
But the story didn’t end here as usual!
To his surprise, the buyer soon returned with the case and pearl. The dealer was literally a little frustrated and expected he would think again. But to his astonishment, the buyer took the pearl out, gave it back to the dealer and left with the glittering box only!

This Chinese idiom is used to satirize people who are bewitched by the gorgeous appearance and give up the precious essence, and also used more broadly to mean lacking judgement and making false choices.

In reality, few would go to extremes like the character in the story, perhaps. But when it comes to packaging, it does render us a bit of deja vu, especially with some health products in China. Some products are not as valuable as its packaging and that’s not exaggerating.

However, the importance of packaging should by no means be down played, either to sellers or buyers. Aside from protecting the products inside, a good packaging go a long way in terms of communicating product and brand values between the two parties.

Then, at the spectrum of packaging from simple to excessive, where’s the right point? Maybe there are a thousand hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.
1. As a buyer/consumer, to what extent will you buy in a fancy packaging?
2. If you’re a marketer, how will you balance between luxury and simplicity of packaging?

Round gift boxes get popular in product packaging

Round cardboard tubes catch on in recent years! you can find more and more products are packed in tubes, cosmetics, food, tea and gifts, etc.
Compared to traditional square/rectangular rigid gift boxes, custom paper tubes packaging has its pronounced advantages:
1. Tubes are not so apt to bend from pressure. This advantage may come from its different material and production method. Tubes are machine rolled from kraft paper, layer by layer, and reinforced with glue. But non-tube rigid boxes are mainly framed/support by thick grey board. And all boards, whatever they are made of, tend to warp.
2. The shape make a difference. Pressure over round tubes are evenly spread along the rim, while other shapes can’t as they have corners.

3. Round tubes are more simple in making. Round tubes production generally involves tube rolling, wrapping, some may require hemmed edges and finish treatment, etc. And non-tube packaging entails scoring, die-cutting, except for aforesaid steps.
4. Despite all the above merits, round cardboard gift boxes are even cheaper and more stable in quality.
Of course, many things factor in the choice of packaging styles. products, brand concepts, preferences of certain consumer segments and management teams among other elements influence what to box type to use.
We, Innove Packaging focus on custom cardboard gift boxes manufacturing. Welcome to communicate with us on any packaging needs or questions!

What are the difficulties with personalized, small-lot custom packaging demand?

   In the historic context of new retail era, brand developers and third-party platforms have spared no effort in situational demand satisfaction, bringing new markets and new business opportunities for personalized packaging.

   After the rise of printing e-commerce, new concepts such as personalized customization, small-volume customization, and large-scale personalized customization have gradually emerged. In recent years, the trend of small batches, individualization and customization in the domestic consumer market has intensified, from Weiquan’s Word Game Bottles campaign(“拼字瓶”) to the Colgate's Dare to Love series, and even to Oreo’s custom packaging for Tmall platform.

    Behind the personalized economy, people's new lifestyles and new social concepts are gradually taking shape. Throughout all the consumer trends and desires, many forms of personalization services already come to being, personalized education, personalized travel services, personalized wedding services, personalized gift customization, personalized clothing customization, personalized luxury ordering... Printing-related personalized applications are endless, and they are constantly evolving with rapid growth. Human society has now entered a personalized era. With the Internet technology, consumption upgrades and social development, this trend of personalized development will become more apparent.

    Back to the personalization process of the printing industry, it is not easy to get started. And even today, there is no mature profit model existing. The early players are mostly in the industry. They have been struggling in the dilemma of where the traffic comes from and how the customer cost is reduced. It doesn't seem to be as smooth as I imagined.

    Where is the aporia for personalization?

   The problem of personalized customization is not a new topic, and it’s a problem that the industry has always been working on: high service costs and high manufacturing costs. The most tricky part lie with personalized customization is the contradiction between critical requirements and small order quantity, low efficiency in winning orders; too low output results in high factory cost of service and manufacturing and thus low profit, which makes the factory unwilling to take orders.

    There are two fundamental reasons for the difficulty of personalization. One is that the order is inefficient and the output is low compared to the big order. The second is that the factory assembly line are designed for mass order production, which is not suitable for small orders.

    Therefore, personalized customization must use a production mode suitable for small orders, do not shoot mosquitoes with a cannon, in order to get out of the misunderstanding of personalized customization.

    The essence of the problem of custom box designs is profit. If the profit brought by personalization is far higher than the cost of fulfilling the order, this will become a profitable thing, the problems with personalization will no more exist.

    All in all, personalized packaging is a tempting business, on the one hand, it is really profitable, and the imagination is huge. On the other hand, we have also seen some of many printing and packaging companies peers who have tried get the fruit failed in practice.

What is spot color printing in cardboard gift boxes?

Spot color printing(专色印刷) is a printing process involved in offset printing, using a spot color ink (pure or mixed) specifically formulated according Pantone code. It’s a single and extra run other than the general CMYK 4C printing process, and thus requires its own lithographic film.

Then on what occasions is spot color printing necessary? (1) When the cardboard gift boxes designs involve gold or silver color. Golden and silvery colors differs greatly from rest colors and are extremely opaque. Thus they are impossible to realize on the print by regular CMYK offset printing process. In this case, spot color printing can be used to achieve golden or silvery tones (An alternative method to foil stamping).

(2)The prints often comprise uniform color areas of varying gradient colors and text. These color areas and texts can be achieved either by the process of registering in offset printing or by spot color printing. With comprehensive trade-off between improving print quality and saving the runs of registering, it is sometimes necessary to use spot color printing (An alternative method to registering).

Spot color printing uses a non-standard offset ink such as metallic, fluorescent, or hand-mixed ink. Every color needs one lithographic film and an extra printing run. Also, the potential for problems will generally increase. All these will be factored into the total cost of the final gift boxes.

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[Innove Packaging designs and manufactures window gift boxes, rigid shoulder boxes, decorative drawer gift boxes, hexagon explosion cardboard boxes, luxury nesting apparel gift boxes of 3, and custom odd shaped boxes, etc.]