Beginner's Guide to Ecommerce Packaging

If you are about to ship your first orders, this is the short version of what you need and what it costs.

The four things you need

1. Something to put the product in — a mailer for soft goods, a box for anything rigid or fragile.
2. Something to stop it moving — void fill or protective wrap, if you are using a box.
3. Something to close it — tape for boxes; mailers self-seal.
4. Something to address it — thermal labels and a desktop printer, or printed labels on adhesive sheets to start.

That is genuinely it. Everything else is optimisation or branding.

Settle your size first, then buy in bulk

We supply in bulk only — every product has a minimum order worth at least $500 — so the sequence matters more here than it would at a retail supplier. Most new sellers should start with retail packaging, and come to a bulk supplier once their volume is steady and their size is settled.

Step one: get the size right on paper. Measure your product at its widest point in each axis, add the clearances set out in the guides above, and check the result against the internal dimensions published on every product page. If you are between two sizes, send us the dimensions and weight and we will tell you which we would use.

Step two: order one size, properly. When you do buy in bulk, order the one size you have specified at its minimum rather than spreading a first order across three you have not. A single well-chosen size costs less and teaches you more than three guesses.

A workable first bulk order for a seller shipping at volume:

• the minimum of the one mailer or box size you have specified
• void-fill paper, if you are using boxes
• tape, only if you are already shipping at volume — otherwise wait
• thermal labels, if you ship enough parcels to use them

Mistakes that are expensive to undo

• Custom printed packaging on day one. High minimums, long lead times, and you do not yet know which size you will settle on.
• Buying several years of stock to get a better price. Ties up cash you need elsewhere, and locks you into a size you may abandon. Buy to the next tier, not to the biggest one.
• Too many sizes. Splits your buying volume and slows the bench down.
• Under-protecting to save a penny. One damaged order costs more than the saving on hundreds of parcels, and loses the customer as well.

A rough starting budget

Each product’s minimum is worth at least $500, so a first bulk order of three or four lines is several thousand dollars and covers many months of parcels for a seller shipping thousands a month. If that is more than you ship in a year, retail packaging is the right answer for now, and we would rather say so. Print and custom sizes move the figure up again, which is why it is worth being deliberate about when you take those steps.

Then what?

After a hundred orders you will know which size you reach for, where products get damaged, and what slows the bench down. That is the point to consolidate onto fewer formats, buy a tier up, and start thinking about print.

Tell us what you sell and roughly how much and we will put a starting list together with prices.