Different and unique packaging is the easiest way to make your product outstanding. And making your own packaging is also a much easier and cheaper way to brand your product. Therefore, before you put too much cost to make an engraved logo on the products, try to make your packaging with the logo first. This article will guide you on how to customize your own packaging to where to source the packaging material from China.
1. The Importance of Customized Packaging
Customized brand packaging can bring brand awareness to your audiences. After packaging, the product can be distinguished from similar competitive products. And exquisite packaging can avoid being copied and counterfeited. It’s the best way to maintain the credibility of the enterprise.
The packaging is also a major tool for product marketing and a powerful means of competition. The package is “the silent salesperson” when the clients have the first contact with the packaging. So, packaging can also receive the effect of advertising. Sometimes, the quality of the same products may be equal, but good packaging will often become the main consideration for consumers or users to buy products. With the improvement in packing, an old product can give a new impression. Therefore, packaging can effectively help products to maintain or expand market share.
Good packaging can make the products and the packaging complement each other. This is to avoid the situation of “first-class products, second-class packaging, third-class prices”. It also can raise the price of the product, so that consumers or users are willing to pay a higher price to buy as a result of increasing sales revenue.
The realization of product packaging will improve product quality, enrich the product varieties, and have easy control of the inventory. In addition, product packaging can reduce the product loss rate, affect the transportation and storage, etc.
2. Packaging Knowledge
You may only have limited knowledge about packaging if you have never imported in bulk before. Or you never intended to make your customized packaging. Most of us pay little to no attention to the packaging. However, customizing and changing the package is not that hard. And it does not always require a few thousand quantities to start.
2.1 Packaging Material
Different products may fit into different packages. And different packages may have huge differences in the price and appearance, etc. In international shipping, we usually use 3 or 5 layers of corrugated boxes as the outer export cartons. And according to different products, it may apply to different product inner packages.
Customized Paper Box Plastic Blister Box Customized Earphone Case
Here are some commonly used packaging materials.
- Bags – paper bags, plastic (PP, PE, OPP, PVC, PVA) bags, fabric bags, etc.
- Boxes – corrugated boxes, plastic boxes, gift boxes, display boxes, etc.
- Cards – hanging cards, blister cards, etc.
- Bubble wrap/self-seal bubble mailers/foam/air pillows
2.2 Customized Packaging Price & MOQ
Does customized packaging require a very big quantity of MOQ? Will the price be too expensive to realize? The answer is no. Customized packaging may require a certain quantity, but it is not too big to reach. Actually, you can realize your customized packaging at a cheap price and a reasonable quantity. The MOQ for customized packaging can be from 300 pcs to 1,000 pcs. The cheaper the material, the higher the quantity will be required. And this MOQ is not controlled by the manufacturer, but the print and product packaging subcontractor.
If your order quantity cannot reach the MOQ from the factory’s packaging subcontractor, probably it’s hard to meet the quantity from a new packaging factory, too. For example, if you order 100 pcs to start, but the MOQ of the customized packaging is 300 pcs. How to solve the MOQ problem in this situation? You need to know if this is a regularly ordered product. If it is, you can consider make 300 packages and store the rest 200.
If you can meet the MOQ from the factory to customize the packaging, then you don’t really need to pay much cost. Normally the factory will only charge a new printing cost around US$ 100. In case you decided to source the packaging on your own, the price for plastic bags is low to US$ 0.03 for a MOQ of 2,000 pcs, and for customized boxes starts from US$ 0.2 for a MOQ of 1,000 pcs. Compared to the value brought by the customized packaging, the price of it is cheap.
3. Where to Source Packaging Factories?
You probably don’t need to source a product packaging manufacturer on your own, as long as you don’t plan to create a customized packaging. Even for some tiny changes on the packaging, the factories could manage it as they outsource packaging regularly or they have a long-time cooperated packaging subcontractor. That’s why it’s a better choice to work with the production factory to make changes in the existed packaging.
In case you are creating a very special customized packaging in a large quantity, here is a brief introduction of the major types of packaging suppliers in China.
3.1 Sourcing Packaging Material from Cangnan
Cangnan(苍南, in pinyin cāng nán) is a county-level city in Zhejiang province where is famous for producing packaging material. Longgang (龙港, in pinyin lóng gǎng) was a town of Cangnan, and it was just reformed as a city in August 2019. Longgang is also known as the “Capital of Packaging in China”. Over 1,000 factories in Cangnan committed to providing both packaging and printing products like books, magazines, catalogs, brochures, packaging boxes, color boxes, gift boxes, paper bags, paper shopping bags, non-woven shipping bags, desk calendars, calendars, stickers, clothing tags and all kinds of cards, etc.
3.2 Sourcing Packaging Material from Yiwu
If you are not willing to travel to Cangnan for sourcing packaging companies, the Yiwu market is a great place to meet your expectations. You can have one-stop shopping of millions of small commodities in the Yiwu wholesale market. And packaging material can be sourced in Yiwu Market District Two. There are numerous small factories near Yiwu city center as well. Our sourcing agent can help you get products and packages from the Yiwu market and arrange to repack, bundle or label, etc.
3.3 Sourcing Packaging Material from Shanghai
Many packaging manufacturers can be source near Shanghai as well. If you own a packaging material company and you are used to landing Shanghai airport, then it’s convenient to appoint few packaging factories in Shanghai. Shanghai Packaging factories supply mainly gift bags, inner packing box, and outer cartons, etc.
3.4 Sourcing Packaging Material from Guangdong
In case your products are from the south part of China in Guangdong province, then you can source the packaging from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Dongguan as well. You can find many cosmetics packaging boxes and bottles from Guangzhou as it has a lot of cosmetics factories. In Shenzhen, there are high-quality standard packaging factories for tags, gift bags, color boxes, etc. And Dongguan mainly supplies packaging tapes in different materials.
4. How to Customize Your Packaging?
To customize your packaging is not as hard as you ever imagined. Here are 3 steps to realize your customized packaging.
- Research
Have research from Amazon.com or Alibaba.com that how are the products being packed. You can make a simple table to list 5-10 products about their differences in the packaging. What is the packaging material and how is it packed? You will get a lot of ideas and inspirations from them.
From Amazon.com, you can even have a look at the review of the products. Pay special attention to the reviews with product pictures. Probably you will get critical ideas from the comment area to improve the packaging.
More practically, you can consult your friends from social media channels about how to make better product packaging. The on-ground experience will make the solution more impressive. - Design
After step one, you confirmed the packaging material and probably a draft of your customized packaging. Now, let’s design it. As mentioned before, the best scenario is to edit and print from the subcontractor if there are only slight changes in the original design from the factory.
A completely new idea could be realized by outsourcing an experienced designer from Upwork or Fiverr. All you need to do is share your ideas and requirements to them, discuss the price and confirm the delivery time, etc. And there are a few points to add on to perfect the design.
Country of Origin
This is to show the customers that where are the products being made (e.g. Made in China). Also, the custom may also require showing the country of origin on the product and the package. Obviously, it’s a much easier solution to apply it on the packaging than the product.
Product Code
Product code is also very important no matter you are selling online or offline. Selling online like on Amazon, have a product code printed on the package will be more professional. And a product code on the package for the offline retail store can help to track the inventory and sales.
Compliance Marks
In some countries or regions, specific compliance marks will be needed on the package. For example, the CE mark for European Union is always mandatory. At the same time, this will remind us to have a qualified product when we do the product sourcing.
Warning Labels
Will the product bring any harm to certain people? Make sure you check the related regulations and apply a warning label.
Sellers now also put their social information on the package. It’s not suggested to have so many elements. But your design with such points taken into consideration will save a lot of work later. - Find A Supplier to Print
Once you get a final design, still, you can ask your factory if they can assist to print. Printing by the factory or its subcontractor will make the process smoother. Sourcing a packaging factory by yourself or by a sourcing agent, you may need to take the factory location into consideration as the transportation cost of the package may influence your final cost.
Conclusion
Importing from China, you don’t have to be a packaging expert. Hope this article gives you more confidence to brand your own packaging. We would love to hear your experience in customizing products and packaging. And if there are any questions concerning product and packaging sourcing, a personal consultant is available from us.
