It has always been said that you will have more bargaining power if you purchase in bulk. While this is true in most cases, it may not make economic sense for some small businesses to purchase large stocks. This is because they may not have constant business to ensure that the stocks are fully utilised. Start ups usually struggle with this problem as most of them may not yet have the customer base to ensure frequent stock turnover. With packaging supplies however, one can hardly go wrong by making huge orders as these are items that do not spoil. All you need to do is store them safely in a place free of moisture and they will be ready for use whenever the orders come in.

Items such as cardboard boxes are best ordered in packs if you are serious on saving. Most vendors of these boxes offer attractive prices for these packs and will even offer you free delivery should your purchases exceed a specified value. Theboxwarehouse.co.uk for instance will sell you each standard sized double walled box for £2. But if you buy a pack of over 180, you will spend just £1.54 per box. Another vendor will sell you two cases of padded mailing bags for £35 per case whereas you will save £1 per case if you buy more than two cases. They are even willing to negotiate further if you buy more than seven cases.

The same principle of discounts with larger purchases applies to other packaging materials such as adhesive tapes, padded envelopes, polythene bags etc. It is clear that ordering packaging supplies in bulk is beneficial not only in terms of discounts on purchases, but also in terms of savings on delivery costs.

You're walking through the shop, seeking a snack, and your eye is drawn to particullarly enourmous looking bag of crisps; best of all, it's labelled in large red tape "20% More!" surely that much food can satisfy anyone's cravings. So you pay for your item, you leave the shop, and you open your bag of crisps, only to find that more than half of that huge bag is pure air, with a measly amount of food sat lonely at the bottom of the pack. How do our favourite brands get away with this then? It's not such an uncommonly heard story, many of you will be grimacing over the last time your experienced something similar. 

Fact is, it's perfectly legal. Of course, the relevant authoroties pursue anyone taking it to the extreme with a lot more packaging than contant; you can't exceed more than 40% of emptiness otherwise it's acted on, but usually brands just about meet this rule. We as consumers, need to start looking at the fine print.

By law, the product's content must at the very least meet the net weight described on the packaging. If they say you're getting 50g of crisps, you legally should get what you pay for, but really how many of us know what 50g of crisps looks like, or an ounce or a kilogram? It's careful marketing to help the brand save a little money. 

Likewise if you read one of the usual "20% more!" descriptions or likewise, it doesn't always mean what we assume. We instantly think the product contains 20% more of it's origional weight in a standard pack; giving us percieved value for money. However, when you read the fine print you'll find advertisers can use phrases such as "*20% more than the nearest competitor", so make sure you always look to check what the comparison is against. 

Lady Gaga has conquered the music industry, and now shes turning her eye to fashion; recently as a special christmas event Gaga's workshop opened in department store Barney's in New York, guest were exclusively invited by means of a ticket invitation, but with Gaga's style, it couldn't just be any old piece of paper could it? So the rush to design packaging for the ticket commenced.

The concept was to have a simple box to represent Barney's, and have a pop up explosion to show Gaga's takeover. Here are the concepts in development:-

1. When you are looking to redce your environmental impact, many businesses take the route of focusing on reducing waste and using recycleable containers, many overlook the fact that the smallest environmental impact is created when packaging is not thrown out at all! For larger businesses you should consider making your packaging indespensable by perhaps making it into a form of storage for your product, a recent example is a major coffee brand selling their jars as an initial investment, then encouraging their customers to buy plastic "re-fill bags" to top up their jar, as the plastic bags have less environmental impact than the jars. You could make a multipack packaging box into a great way of storing your product when customers just buy singles. Another method of making your packaging indespensible (especially for smaller "cult" brands) is to make your packaging a collectable. For example famous perfumes often have beautifully designed bottles that collectors will keep, or when an item is presented in a designer and high quality box, people may use it as storage rather than throwing it out. It's a good arguement for not having function purely over form to save costs; when design can be so influential.

2. Never neglect the need to update your packaging design periodically. However timeless and stylish you believe your packaging to be, there will come a day when new packaging by competitors could render it obsolete; especially with new printing and design technologies being developed constantly. Think Coca-Cola, they have timeless design but they still rebrand constantly to stay fresh. Adding a new coat of paint or a new typeface can instantly add a greater percieved value to your product and create a serge in sales. You might also consider limited edition packaging; getting an artist to come in and design something special for a limited number of your product could increase sales of your product for collectors and for fans of that artist. 

3. Potentially around 10% of the UK does not have British as their first language, and you are therefore possibly holding off sales from that demographic if you only have English on your packaging. Most products have space on their box to add a small section describing the product to non-english speakers, and it is also impostant to usually display a large clear picture of your product on the front of your packaging if it is not already obvious what your box contains; this will help anyone that strugles to understand language or even jargon you might have. You never want to make your product inaccessable to anyone, you are limiting your sales over something that can very simply be changed.

4. Examine the packaging of your competitors and consider who will surround your item when it is placed on a shelf. What may seem bright and exciting in production might not attract any attention when put against colourful packaging from competitiors. You might find the answer is actually to use very simple and minimalistic packaging as this will attract the customer's attention from others. if you sell several items that all appear grouped together, such as one drink in many different flavours, you can use this to your advantage to dominate the entire area your packaging is featured in with your brand. If you have a set of very distinctive colours that make people think of your brand, then you might choose to place all your items in that colour to attract the consumer's eye to that part of the shelf.

5.  Did you know that consumers actually only glance over each item on a shelf for about 0.6 seconds? Marketers may think it's essential to have all of a product's features placed on it's packaging, but it's actually very easy to scare customers off by bombarding them with features, colours and text. The best plan is to only focus on the essential features of your product, maybe a good idea is to capture attention first with design, then use a smaller print to explain the product when a customer has picked it up. Besides, too much emphasis on a desperate attempt to sell can cheapen your brand; good design is always key to selling; not so much about punchy marketing tricks you're taught in books.

Your manfacturers insurance policy is your protection against anything going wrong with your raw materials, machinery or distribution of your products.  You may find that from time to time your machinery breaks down, which is an expensive exercise to repair, you want the best cover so that this event doesn’t lower your profit margins.

On average you probably make thousands of products, but is your policy covering you for everything you need? Your policy should include damage or theft of raw materials, machinery breakdown, goods in transit, public liability, employee liability and loss of income.

It doesn’t matter what you manufacture, but one item of machinery breaking down is not only a lengthy and expensive repair process; it can leave you losing out on profits. If that machine can’t make money, you are at a loss.  Loss of income can protect you against this, so always ensure that this is included in your policy.

When obtaining protection, get a minimum of three quotes first.  You can weigh them up against each other and see what each company offers and which comes in at the better price.  Also check if they are flexible and that you can add items to your policy such as loss of income.

Don’t sign a policy until you are sure that you are getting the best cover for the lowest premium.  While one company may charge slightly more than another, you may find the cover is superior and you will not be left in financial chaos from machinery breaking down and ruining raw materials in the process.

Your machinery is probably one of your biggest investments, unless you’ve purchased your building.  You need to ensure that these machines are serviced regularly to reduce the risk of breakdown, though this can still happen from time to time.  Also ensure your staff are fully trained on how to operate this expensive machinery, this will lower the risk of something going wrong.

If you think about it when a machine breaks down while producing a product, chances are the raw materials being used at that point in time are going to get damaged.  Double check your policy and make sure that everything is covered to save yourself a lot of stress and money.

Also check and see that your goods in transit are protected.  While your machinery may have the cover you need, if your finished products are damaged in transit you will lose important profits, so always make sure your manufacturers insurance policy offers you all the cover you may ever need.

Check out these weird and wonderful t-shirt packaging ideas from Here! Sod. A stange concept but likely effective in making the t-shirts stand out on the shelves. Homing in on the idea that creative packaging sells.

Whether posting your item or providing it to be stacked on ashelf in a shop, it is essential to make sure your item is tamper proof; therefore protected against counterfeiting, stealing and shoplifting. Your item needs to reassure the consumer that it has reached them in the intended condition.

Security Seals

This is a great idea to use on packaging boxes you deliver to your customers; security seals can be tape or a label, that when tampered with will display a VOID label, or will inform the customer that if the tape has been broken not to accept the delivery. New innovations mean that some tape now contains heat sensitive ink, which will change colour when subjected to say, body temperature. This means it will become extremely evident if someone has carefully taken the tape off and reapplied it, providing much greater security than ordinary tape. Another tip when using security tape is to print your brand name on to it, this makes it more difficult to duplicate and replace if the package is opened.

Clamshell Packaging

When marketing your item on a shop floor it becomes harder to prevent shoplifting, one option to prevent this is to use clamshell packaging; clear plastic sheets which close together with preforated tabs. These are difficult for people to open, and the advantge for shops is that electronic security tags can be placaed inside the packaging. This means shoplifters cannot easily access the tags and remove them. However the obvious disadvantage with these is that they can irritate the consumer who buys the product, due to how difficult it is to open. 

Has an end come to buying in thousands of boxes in different sizes? Possibly, according to Patrick Sung, inventor of the universal packaging system.

He has come up with this unique concept; a sheet of recycled cardboard with a grid of fold lines, so you can effectively "wrap-up" your item in cardboard. 

This is an industry changing product in many ways; firstly it addresses the problems we face with the environmental impact of packaging- Using on sheet of the Universal Packaging System uses on the essential ammount of cardboard, as opposed to an oversized box, where most of the content may be purely filled with air. Secondly the packaging allows ease when wrapping objects which are not shaped conventionally, and may therefore need extra packaging to stop the product rolling around inside a box for example. 

However, when we see innovation, businesses can get overly excited and not notice the disadvantages of new products. What worries me about the Universal Packaging System is the fact it cannot be stacked. Businesses spend a lot of money on distrobution centers, where packages need to be stored in a way that is easily accessable, so products can be quickly and efficiently found and shipped to their destination; if a package is oddly shaped, it may need to be stored in a container, giving it the chance to get lost among others.

 Another problem  is that the UPS leaves little accomodation for fragile products, or products with many components. When packaging a delicate item in a box there is plenty of space for bubble wrap, packaging peanuts, and more cardboard to protect the item, this is not as possible with sheets of cardboard, and in terms of if your product comes with multiple components, they would just have to be bundled together, whereas in a box, they could be sectioned with slotted cardboard and moulded plastic.

You can read Dave Freeman's article at TechCrunch on the disadvantages of the UPS here.

Designers are always looksing for new packaging concepts to make their product stand out on the shelves and give it a unique selling point, and a designer who has recently acheived this is Anni Nykänen, when she designed a new way of packaging popcorn. The design encorporates a way of folding the packet to provide a serving dish, and takes its inspiration from origami folding. 

This packaging encorporates all the essential elements it need to be practical, but also fun and asthetically pleasing. This is important to look into when designing packaging for your business's products; your customers needs must be fulfilled while also making your product attractive. Pop-up Popcorn is easily stackable and takes up little space, but still provides room for a substantial portion of popcorn, and folds out into a larger cup shape. This makes the product very convinient for home storage and portability. 

The designer is part of Packlab and you can explore their website to find more of their latest innovations.