Opportunities in Short-Run Packaging for Commercial Printers

One of those areas is short-run packaging, which can open up new markets and give you far greater reach into your customer accounts than many other opportunities.

First, what is “short-run packaging”? For many brands, this term is used to define jobs that can include prototyping a new packaging design, creating a special edition of a product to mark an occasion or help drive a promotion, or even versioned packaging for different regions or cities, to name a few. Unlike traditional packaging jobs, these are typically very small batches, making them difficult — if not impossible — to run on the equipment that handles their primary applications.

This type of packaging also tends to be more flexible with the materials — within reason; food still needs to be in food-safe containers, as one example — which means there is an excellent opportunity for commercial printers with the right equipment, usually digital, to step in and capture that work. Several trends are driving the rapid adoption of shorter runs when it comes to packaging, all of them to the benefit of commercial printers:

Brands are looking for more sustainable options. They don’t want to produce thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of empty packages that will never be used. They are already looking to go to more “just in time” options for their primary packaging, so it stands to reason that will carry over into their more experimental or R&D endeavors as well. Commercial printers can offer a way for brands to try things out on a smaller scale and with much less waste than they would get in a traditional packaging environment without sacrificing quality.

Brands are seeking ways to create a better customer experience. How many times have you heard someone talk about “unboxing,” for example? Enjoying the packaging before opening the box is just as critical for many brands today as the product inside. With influencer culture here to stay, brands need to stand out from the crowd, and they do that with their packaging.

Brands are looking for more flexibility. If the pandemic taught us nothing else, it was that supply chains can and will collapse under significant strain. Brands are looking for ways to mitigate that by spreading their work out across the country and even around the world in some cases, so an issue in one market won’t impact the entire chain. Short-run packaging goes hand-in-hand with that trend. As brands seek to diversify their manufacturing, commercial printers can step in and be a resource they hadn’t considered.

Getting Into Short-Run Packaging
So, as a commercial printer, if you have any digital equipment and you have any customers that produce any kind of product that goes in any type of package, now is an excellent time to evaluate if you can start offering them short-run packaging as another application to bring under one roof. But just jumping right in likely won’t get you anywhere. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Know your capabilities. Just having a digital press isn’t enough. Make sure you understand what that press is capable of and what types of substrates it can comfortably run. You can even have your operators produce in-house packaging so you can ensure you understand the process. Further, ensure you have the right digital finishing options to complement that press regarding packaging. You’ll want to make sure you have the right cutters, folders, coaters, and even gluers for some applications, at a minimum.

Packaging, after all, isn’t just a flat sheet. It has dimension and needs to not only look great but function as well. This is less of a worry if you plan to specialize in prototypes, where you’re only producing a few pieces so a brand can see a proposed packaging design change before they send it along to production, but if you want to shift into producing short-run packaging that will contain products, make sure you and your team are comfortable with what your equipment can do.

If you want to stand out, consider adding digital embellishment equipment as well — things like foil, metallics, embossing, and even glitter can all help make a package stand out. Short-run packaging is often a place where a brand is willing to splurge a bit and go all-out, especially for pieces meant to be a special edition or promotion. If you can create eye-catching effects with as much flexibility and speed as you do the digital printing, it could give you an edge when competing for some of these short-run packaging jobs.

Talk to your customers. What kinds of packaging are they already producing? Where are they getting it? What is on their wish list of things they would like to have if it were a perfect world and there were no technology or budget barriers? This will give you a good foundation as to what types of short-run packaging might be the best fit for your operation today.

Think about the types of short-run packaging you would love to see offered. What types of customers or brands are requesting that type of work — or would benefit from it, whether they are current customers or not? Put together a great, eye-catching sample that shows off your short-run packaging capabilities and highlights the power short-run batches can bring to a packaging application — and what benefits a brand could get from it.

Use short-run packaging as a way to get into customers you might not have thought you had a shot with. You can always use that relationship to move them into your other areas of expertise over time. Short-run packaging is an opportunity that any commercial printer with digital presses can explore. It is a lucrative space that offers a degree of stability as well. After all, no matter what is going on with the economy, politics, pandemics, or anything else, people still need to buy goods. And those goods still need packaging. Finding a niche that complements your commercial print services and allows you to expand with your current customer base and capture new markets will have a long-term positive impact on your bottom lines.