006: Packaging is My Favorite | Subscription Box Tips with Sarah Williams

When I think about a subscription box, I get excited about the packaging. And today we're talking about one of my favorite things. We're talking about packaging from basic to custom, from inside the box and out. We're covering it all in today's episode.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Hello everybody. Today we're talking about boxes and I want to start this episode off with a little story about the show that I watch. And I hope that you watch it too, because it'll make sense. If you don't watch it, you totally should. I'm talking about The Profit. So it's a show on CNBC and the host is Marcus Lemonis. So he is, he's the CEO of Camping World. And what he does is he goes into these small businesses that are struggling or failing. And he takes a look at their business. He looks at their financials, um, the way they do business, and he decides if he wants to invest in them and then help make them profitable. And so it's called The Profit, and I want to talk about a specific episode. And if you want to go back and look for this episode, it's called Santa's Toys. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called. And, um, it's about a toy store that's really struggling, and he wants to get them more of an online presence. But he talks about the box that they're going to ship the toys in. And he says something that has just like stuck with me ever since I watched that episode a few months ago. And he said, it's like a traveling billboard, your box ships all over the country, and your message travels on the outside of that box all over the country. So I want you to listen to this episode. And I want you to think about your own box. And I want you to think about it being a traveling goalboard. I want you to think about your message going across the country in the form of a box. So when you think about it that way, it's really going to inspire you to create a beautiful box and really spread your message in that way. If you can't afford a custom box right out of the gate, it's okay. Not a lot of people can. For me as well, I couldn't afford that custom pretty box. I knew that I always wanted it. I had dreams about this box. When you think about a subscription box, it's part of the, it's part of the fun. That's part of the experience. And I always knew that I wanted a beautiful box to go with my product, but I couldn't figure that out right away because it was so expensive. And at the end of the day, this subscription box needed to be a profitable part of my business. So I didn't want to sacrifice the profits for the custom packaging right away, but I set a threshold and I told myself when I get to X I get to X number of subscribers— that was 100, by the way— when I get to 100 subscribers, I'm going to invest in that pretty box for my subscription box. And so I kind of bootstrapped it at first. I started with a plain box, and it's totally okay to start there. Many of my Launch Your Box members have to start with a plain box. One, it takes time to design and print a custom box. And two, it's, it's a lot of money. So I don't want you to think that you have to spend all your money making a custom box in the beginning, but there's a couple options when we talk about that basic box. And so you could do a white box, you could do a brown craft box, you could even do a colored box. And all of these would be considered basic boxes because they have no print on them and you can dress them up in variety of ways. And I can tell you some of the ways that I've seen my members really dress up their own subscription boxes. When they're using a basic box. So for me, I used a stamp. So I use the brown craft box in the beginning because it was easy to stamp. The white box, the colored box, they have kind of a glossy finish, and I was afraid a stamp was going to run or bleed on those or smear. So I use a craft box and I purchased a large logo stamp. So I just did this on Etsy. I ordered a stamp with my logo on it and I purchased a large ink pad. So really I had about a $40 or $50 investment in my stamp, and I had probably a $20 investment in my ink pad, and I knew that I could use this more than once. So it wasn't just good for one month's box. I could use it over and over again. And so I would just stamp each of those brown boxes as I was prepping for my monthly subscription. You could do the same thing with a sticker or custom tape or custom labels. So you could have a sticker made for the top of your box. You could also have custom logo tape made that went around your box to seal it. Either way, it would be a great choice. Some of my LauncherBox members have used a large sticker that folds over the top and around the bottom. So they don't actually have to even use tape to seal the box. They put their sticker on the top, it folds in the front and it folds over the bottom. So they're basically sealing the box with a sticker, which is genius because then you don't have the weird tape on there, like all of that plastic tape folding down the sides and everything. You don't have to have both a sticker and custom logo tape. So kind of saving some money there. I just want you to be careful when you look at buying a basic box and adding stickers and logo tape and all of the things that it doesn't cost you so much that it's just easier to buy the custom box instead, because all those little pieces could add up. That's why I like the stamp, because I could use it and reuse it over and over again, and it felt less expensive than doing the custom stickers. And there's also one thing that I want to caution you about when you buy a basic box. So buying a mailer box is typically what a subscription box comes in. It's that box where you can open it on the front and it lifts up. But there's two different types of those mailers. One can have interlocking tabs and one cannot. And what you should look for is one that has those interlocking tabs because they're folded in and they fold down with the box. If you don't have those side flaps on there, you're going to have to put tape along the top and the sides to close the gap between the top of the box and the sides of the box. And honestly, there's just a lot of tape and it kind of looks tacky if you have to put tape all over your box. They are a little bit more expensive to get the interlocking tabs, but it saves you so much time, it looks so much better, and you don't have to waste money on tape. Now, when we think about adding all these pieces, make sure you're adding them up so you don't go over your budget. But one thing about the custom box is that you really save money the more you buy. And this is why I decided to wait until I had 100 subscribers, because I didn't want to order a bunch of boxes in my first month or so, and then this, this wasn't going to go well. I wanted to test it a little bit. I wanted to make sure that what I was working on was going to work before I invested in those boxes. And I also wanted to make sure I could see that I was selling, you know, 100 at a time. That made sense for me to start ordering the custom box. It takes time to order that box. Sometimes it would take 4 to 6 weeks to really get a custom box. So when you're ready for that, get the process started right away and you can either design it yourself or you can hire a custom graphic designer. A lot of the box companies have box designers on staff, All you have to do is give them your ideas, give them the logo, and you can pay them to design your box. If you design a lot of your own things, you can totally design your own box. You pick a background, which is the, which is on your box. You add your logo and whatever else you want to add to that. Just be careful because in the beginning I told you it was like a billboard. Your box is like a billboard as well. Billboards don't have a lot of words on them. So you don't want to put a lot of graphics, a lot of words, and really dilute the message. You want it to be a big print, have your logo and maybe a tagline or your website. You don't want to put a whole bunch of information on the outside of this box. Treat it like if you were designing a billboard. You can also see how every piece that you customize increases the cost of your box. So be aware of that. If you put something on the inside of your box, it's going to cost more. If you put something on the outside, the under underneath the inside flap. I mean, you could put stuff everywhere, but at the end of the day, you don't want to pay $10 for each of those boxes that you send out. So watch the cost. You can totally design it yourself, upload it on there, and then, um, you're good to go. Now you really get a good discount when you can order more than 2,000 boxes. And I know that might feel really scary to some of you listening right now. You're like, Sarah, I can't order 2,000 boxes. But if you could cut the cost of your box almost in half by ordering 2,000, would you? Yes. And does that make sense for you? So that makes sense only if you know the size that you need. So here's the thing, size matters. So if you're using the same size box every single month, it's a no-brainer to go ahead and invest in the 2,000 pieces. Because you know that you're going to use those and you're probably going to use them quickly. If you only have 100 subscribers, obviously it's going to take you 20 months to use all of that. But just know that you have 100 subscribers now, but you may have 300 subscribers in 3 months, you may have 500 subscribers. So those boxes will really go fast as you continue to grow your subscription box. But let's talk about that size because it's important for a lot of reasons. So if you have the same size box, There's an— there's— it's great because you can order your boxes in bulk. You have them all the time. You don't have to worry about them shipping. But the one thing that I don't love about that scenario is that everything you buy has to fit in that one box. And that kind of limits what you can put in your box. The other option is having a couple size boxes. This is what I do. I have a few different sizes that I use throughout the year that fit different things. Now I can plan my whole year out. And I know which size box I need for which month. I can, if I need 4 months of one size box, I need 3 months of another box, and I need another 4 months of a different size box, I can plan my order accordingly based on what's going in those boxes. And you might be wondering, well, why don't you just buy a box big enough to fit everything and then you only have to have one box, Sarah? And you know, as easy as that sounds, it's going to create a lot of different costs for you. So if you would look at your year that you have planned out, or maybe even 6 months if you're not planned out for a year, and you look at the largest piece that's going in any one of those boxes and you decide you're going to buy that size box for all the months, you're probably going to have extra box cost because you're buying a bigger box. It's going to cost more than a smaller box would. Two, you're probably going to pay more shipping because you've got a larger dimensional weight, which costs more in shipping. Than a smaller dimensional weight. And 3, you're going to have to use some filler to fill up that box. The last thing you want is for someone to open that box and for it to be empty. So you're going to have to then purchase filler like shreds, air pillows, peanuts, tissue paper, all those things. And if there's a lot of space in that box, that's a lot of filler that you're going to have to buy. And that also weighs a lot. So you're adding additional weight to your box that you necessarily wouldn't have if you had a smaller box. Now, while we're on this topic, we can talk about the, the inside of the box a little bit. I buy my boxes and really try to find product that's going to fill the box. I want that box to be full from bottom to top, side to side. I want my subscriber to open that box and it's full. And so I try to make sure the box is full of product. And not filler, but you, you might need filler and it's okay that you need filler. You can use shreds and tissue paper and all the things we just talked about. But let me tell you a couple scenarios. Like I love tissue paper because one, it's not messy. It's not messy like shreds are. Shreds are, it's like this necessary evil. And we have this running joke inside the Launch Your Box group about shreds. And you know, they just go everywhere. And every time I do a member box box openings where they send me their boxes, I typically have shreds all over the floor, all over my clothes, and ultimately it's all over the products that came in the box, whether it's the actual shred or it's the dust from the shreds. It's all over the products in the box, and I don't like that. I don't want that on my products. I don't want a t-shirt to be dirty when it shows up. I don't want someone having to pick shreds out of things when they open my box, but I also know that it's necessary it's sometimes necessary for you to bury your products in the shreds to save them from breaking. And so I get that and you need to do that. But what I love is I got a box recently from one of our Launch Your Box members and it was just packaged beautifully. So they needed a little filler because the items in the box didn't fill all the way. So they laid shreds on the bottom of the box and they were colored shreds that matched their logo. It didn't necessarily match the items in the box, but it matched the packaging, which was really cool. Then they had tissue paper, and I love to see the tissue paper used because it really, it helps kind of keep your things together. So when you bundle your items in tissue paper before you close the box, it's kind of saves them from shifting around. I love the look of it. I don't use it myself because it takes time, but I love this box. So they had a layer of shreds on the bottom. Then they laid the tissue paper across the top. They kind of folded it in half and laid it across the box. They placed all their items on top of the tissue paper, and then they fold the tissue paper over the top and sealed it with a sticker. So when I opened this box, everything was still kind of in its place because it was tucked inside that tissue paper. So it wasn't shifted all the way around the box. And then the shreds that were in that box weren't touching the actual product. They were underneath that layer of tissue paper. So I thought it was package beautifully. And I would recommend that if you need filler like that and you don't need it to cushion the stuff, to be around your stuff, to kind of put it underneath that tissue paper. It's kind of that buffer layer that helps in shipping, but it also helps in presentation so you don't have shreds everywhere. So make sure whatever packaging you're using, whether it's basic boxes or it's the custom boxes, that your box feels full when they open it. Super important. You'd never ever want to have a box feel empty. There's one more option when we talk about boxes. So we talked about basic boxes, we've talked about custom boxes, and there's kind of a box that's in between both, and that is a logoed box. So you can have your logo printed on a brown box or a white box. I don't know if they do colored boxes these days, but you can typically have 1 to 3 colors on your logo, and it's printed on the side of the box. But I love it because it's not as expensive as the custom box, but it's also not as basic as the basic box. So you have the logo on there. You don't have to stamp anything, you don't have to sticker anything. It looks professional, and you can typically get bigger size boxes this way. So, um, if you have like a home decor box or anything that has like a large item, custom printed boxes are pretty expensive, especially the larger you go. So I think these are great for anyone that has a larger subscription box that way. The last thing that we're going to touch on is the difference between a poly mailer and a box. So a poly mailer or even a bubble mailer is just a plastic bag, and a poly mailer has no padding, and then a bubble mailer has little bubbles on it. So you can also get these customized. Now in the beginning when I had my t-shirt subscription, I just found some cute poly mailers just on Amazon and I used those for a while. I wanted it to look different, I wanted it to look special, so I found something with a fun pattern that was representative of my business but then I went to a custom poly mailer and you might be asking me, well, why did I use a poly mailer for that subscription? And that's because a box weighs. So if I was going to put a t-shirt in a box, I now have to add the weight of that box to my shipment and that then kicked it over a pound. So by putting it in a poly mailer, the mailer doesn't weigh anything. So I can keep it under a pound and therefore I can get first class shipping, which is almost half the price of priority mail. So I chose to use a poly mailer for my t-shirt subscription. And so I want you to think about it because a subscription box doesn't necessarily have to be in a box. And so I didn't call it a box. That's not in the name. I called it a club. You can call it, you know, whatever you want, but it doesn't have to be in a box. And if you have soft goods, I would recommend testing out some mailers versus the box. If you have hard goods, like anything that's a hard good, you definitely want to use a 'cause they're not protected in a mailer, but I use the mailer for my t-shirt subscription. So any kind of soft goods you can use the mailer for, and I can have them custom printed. So after, again, I did the same process. I started this t-shirt subscription and I used just a generic bag that I bought online and I would print little stickers that had my logo on it and I would attach them to the bag. And then as it grew, I invested in the custom poly mailer. And what I found was the custom printed poly mailer was actually the same price, if not lower, than the other mailers that I was just buying online. And the reason why is because I bought them in bulk. So I had to— I found a company and the minimum order was 3,000 mailers. And I thought, wow, that's a lot of mailers. But at that time I had over 300 monthly subscribers. So in my head, worst case scenario, if I don't grow at all and I only have 300 subscribers, I will use all of these bags within 10 months. And that's really not a long period of time. Plus they don't take up a lot of space. It's just a mailer. So I felt like I could invest in those poly mailers. Now I buy them by the 5,000 and 10,000 lots, but at the time 3,000 was a big deal to me, but it saves you so much money. The, a box that I could put a t-shirt in would easily cost me a dollar $1 to $1.50, and that, that's maybe or maybe not custom printed. These custom printed poly mailers are costing me $0.35 each. It's a beautiful bag. I've customized it the way I want to, and every time this t-shirt shows up at someone's doorstep, they know it's from me. They know exactly what it is. It has the subscription logo on it, and they get excited about it. And that's ultimately what we want. Remember, it's our billboard. It's our billboard that travels across the country and spreads our message. So when they they see my beautiful turquoise box or that super cute turquoise mailer show up at their door, they instantly know that package is from me. And that's what I want you to think about when you're looking at your subscription box and how the packaging can relate to that. You know, I want you to use what you can afford. So if the custom box is out of your price range right now, it's okay. And I don't want you to feel bad about that. I want you to use the basic box And I want you to uplevel that packaging as you grow. So set a number, set a goal that when you reach X number of subscribers, you're going to invest in some custom packaging. You can control your costs by ordering in bulk. So remember that, remember that we're building a business and we're in it for the long haul. Like this is not a short game. This is not quick wins. This is a long-term business strategy. So if you know you're in it for the long haul, what's the harm in investing in bulk ordering custom packages? You're going to need it. And if you can order it and get it for half the price you would by just ordering it from month to month, why wouldn't you? You should do that. And then finally, the third thing is remember that it's your billboard. Don't put so much stuff on it that people have to spend an hour reading your box. Make sure that you're sending your message across the country in the form of that box. So I hope that's helpful. I can't wait to see all of your custom packaging. And if you want to get all the resources that I use to buy my own custom packaging, head over to the show notes. We've got a custom packaging cheat sheet there, and it's all my resources. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to Launch Your Box with Sarah .com. Get on our waitlist and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.