With the advances in brand competition, packaging now more than ever plays a big role in promoting your brand. It brings your brand to life. 

As a result, many companies requiring custom packaging are shifting their attention to flexography to design attention-grabbing logos, messages, and designs on standard e-commerce and mailing boxes.

Why Use Custom Printed Shipping Boxes?

Packaging is an extension of your brand. Custom shipping boxes with logos and other branding content help promote your products and services by advertising your brand to your customers. Further, custom printed shipping boxes help create a memorable experience when your clients receive their packages. One ubiquitous experience with custom packaging is that of the Amazon box. Every moment you stumble onto a smiley logo, you know it's Amazon's.

That is how far custom printed shipping boxes can go in taking your brand to the next level. 

A DotCom Distribution survey shows that 4 out of 10 consumers are likely to share pictures of their orders on social media if the products arrive in a unique, branded packaging. And considering consumers love capturing their unboxing moments in videos and watching other unboxing moments, using custom shipping boxes helps take your brand to the next level.

Flexo Printing: The Best Method for Printing on Corrugated

Thinking about how to print on corrugated cardboard? For a long time, businesses have been forced to use display and shipping boxes with dull, low-quality text due to poor printing methods. This results in images that are less attractive to consumers. 

The advances in technology, precisely the ever-increasing capabilities of flexo, have made it possible to print high-quality images and text onto corrugated custom shipping boxes without crashing their flutes in the process.

Elastomer sleeves are the best option when printing onto a corrugated substrate as they are soft enough not to crush the flutes. They are more concentric than plates and require less pressure for even contact and print across the web. Also, they ensure you obtain high-quality images and text. Compared to other image carriers, such as photopolymer plates, they are more durable, allow for tighter registration, and have no plate break.

Flexo for More Than Custom Printed Shipping Boxes

Flexo printing is everywhere and is used to not only print onto corrugated shipping boxes but also to imprint images and texts on a wide range of surfaces as it is with other main industrial printing methods such as offset lithography and screen printing corrugated boxes. You can also use it to improve your brand competitiveness by incorporating:

Custom shipping tape

Custom printed shipping tape features may vary significantly, necessitating them to be handled differently during printing. For example, old-fashioned wet paper tape —fiber in the tape, needs a soft impression to print on top of the fiber tape.

It is worth noting that nowadays, flexo printing on film is common and gaining traction each passing day. And depending on how wide the press is, it might be 3-4 wide, die-cutting may be necessary to cut them to the required shape.

One of the reasons that flexo is such a good option for printing on tape is the continuous printing capabilities. When printing repeated logos or words, there is a significant cost difference in opting for a continuous print elastomer sleeve solution - rather than a plate that has a break. This allows for continuous solid color printing, and results in less investment in colored substrates. 

Padded mailing pouches

It is also possible to flexo print onto padded mailing pouches (not the bubble wraps kind). The brown paper (Kraft paper), due to its organic look and uncoated nature, is recommended as it is not overly absorbent. It absorbs the ink making the colors more faded, especially the light ones.

As for the strong colors, they will pop up more clearly, and you will still have the Kraft box texture. If this paper is left to absorb too much ink, the results will be messy and expensive at the same time because you may be forced to repeat the same process with fresh Kraft papers.

Flexo can also offer unique features to your packaging. With options such as embossing cylinders in the flexo process, you can add texture to your mailing as well. This enables your brand to really stand out from the rest.

Wide web flexo is the preferred method for value-added printing to labels and packaging, such as padded mailing pouches. It offers high-quality print while offering speed efficiency.

Flexo for Sustainability

Consumers are now more than ever before pushing brands to use sustainable practices. According to Nielsen's research, 66% of consumers and 73% of millennials are willing to pay more for sustainable goods. Thankfully, flexo printing on corrugated cardboard and other surfaces has a valuable opportunity to help brands meet sustainability initiatives.

Flexo printing helps brands go green by using less energy, water, chemicals and utilizing sustainable inks. It uses water-based inks, which are more eco-friendly (made from renewable resources) as they have fewer volatile organic products that have implications on the environment.

Flexo printing is a huge contributor to recycling some resources, which is a huge step toward a more environmentally friendly future. For example, elastomer printing sleeves, along with all packaging materials they come in, are recyclable. 

Not to mention the advanced technology such as AI that takes the guesswork out of the equation. This helps brands cut on unnecessary waste and run time, getting them closer to their sustainability goals each passing day.

Thinking About Sustainable Flexo?

Take a look at your business's carbon footprint and ask yourself:

• Are you putting out a lot of waste?
• Where do your products end up once consumers are done with them?
• Is there something you can do to improve the current situation?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, and you need a hand to help your brand meet sustainability through flexo printing, we will be happy to help. For more information, get in touch with us today.