The detail of bringing a package to your door

The detail of bringing a package to your door

Recently we were reading the brilliant work of John Salvatier, more specifically, his blog post called “Reality has a surprising amount of detail”. In it he goes into a lot of detail about just how complicated building stairs is, and how watching water boil takes a tremendous amount of time.

And it suddenly dawned on us that we have never explained the infinite detail that goes into bringing an envelope or package to your doorstep, especially when it’s branded with your own logo. There is a surprising amount of detail involved, not dissimilar to building a staircase (as John Salvatier explains in his piece).  

Enviroflute has been going for many years now so it’s no surprise that we are experts at making eco packaging look simple. But do you know what? Just like watching water boil and the infinite variations of that (again, you’ll need to read John Salvatier’s blog post to truly understand how remarkably complex boiling water is), so too is providing a package that has your logo, colours, and size requirements. And yet we love creating it! We love bespoke packaging. We literally get a kick out of coming up with clever solutions for our customers. So, let’s look at what goes into getting that pretty package, like our picture below, to your doorstep.

Let’s watch a box unfold.

Firstly, a customer will come to us and say, "so Harland (that’s one of our awesome Account Managers), I’ve got this thing I want to send out to my customers and wondered if I could get it in a manilla box with my logo in red added on the outside." And Harland, being the friendly, useful guy he is, responds with "Absolutely. Let’s set up a meeting and explore further" And so, it begins.

Once our team start working on a brief a bunch of things happen. If it’s something completely bespoke that has never been made before, we then go off and find a solution – sizes, shapes, colours, the works. If the client needs it packaged and sent, we can typically find a way. We will talk with our own suppliers and look at materials and finishes, thicknesses, weights, and various options. 

We love to give our customers a prototype if it’s something that’s never been done before (for example, we were recently working on a shaver package that needed to fit into a postal box – cool huh!). Our customer (hopefully you one day) got to touch it, feel it and see what our EnviroBOX looked looks like with their own product inside. And they got to see the FSC stamp printed on the back that shows we use sustainable trees. 

After the prototype or samples have been shared we then provide our customers with a quote and run through all the boring bits (yawn) like how much it costs, when it can be printed, and delivery dates. Don’t worry, we are always competitive. We talk to our printing team and work out when they can schedule a print run in. We then go back to the customer and let them know timeframes and we confirm everything. The customer approves the final print and signs it off.

Once approved, the printing commences. If it is a flexo print job, for example, our printing staff make the flexible printing plate. This requires them to create a raised image that becomes the plate that will be wrapped around a cylinder that will rotate at high speeds and transfer the ink onto the cardboard box. Side note: every time you shop, you're likely buying items in the store that have used Flexo print technology. 

The order finishes being processed by the print team, and the flat packed boxes are loaded onto a pallet. It's shrink wrapped and given to our delivery team. 

And the rest is history, as they say...

You get to go off and deliver the cardboard boxes to your customers. Your own customers get to squeal with delight when they open the box for the first time and see your logo printed in all its glory on the side or top. And they are equally delighted as they open the box and view the contents. Your logo is a part of a journey. Your logo tells a story.

There you have it. That’s the [somewhat simplified] story of how a package gets to your door. Oh and if you want to know more about why we think e-commerce boxes are the way forward, check this out.