Like a word saying, “Attracted by a book cover first before reading inside content.” Custom gift paper packaging is an efficient way to highlight the brand and promote the product quickly. Although there are so many benefits of a custom gift box, the process is time-consuming. The time of customized gift paper packaging is much longer than that of traditional packaging.
The lead times can be a few weeks to a couple of months for custom gift paper packaging. If anyone wants to custom the gift paper packaging for the products during the holidays or festivals, starting planning early is essential.
Customized gift box packaging is usually divided into three stages.
The requirements of each different stage are different, and we can complete none of them in one night or one day. Only the time for cutting the box and printing the box is relatively short, but it also takes time to arrange. These are the production schedule of the factory, which we must take into account. In addition, the time difference between customizing 500, 1000, or 10000 boxes is minimal. In the previous stage, proofing and delivery of abrasive boxes will take more time.
Step 1: Prepress
It is the first stage of actual ready the print layout and the final printing.
When you order a gift paper packaging box, the factory will send you a first sample proof.
You may call the sample a pre-production sample(PPS). The sample will be with digital printing or offset printing. The digital printing color is not exactly like the final product. It would be some color difference. We all know that we will use offset printing on the production instead of digital printing, but digital printing samples can be ready fast.
Without special surface finishing, the factory can finish a digital printing sample with 2-3 days. But if you are willing to spend more time waiting, ask them to make an offset printing sample, as offset printing sample color can be the same as bulk production. Making offset printing samples is generally about a week.
Once the printed sample is approved, the next phase begins, that is, bulk production making, and also called manufacturing.
Step 2: Manufacturing
The manufacturing of custom paper boxes involves prepared material, cutting paper, printing on the wrapping paper, surface finishing, die-cut with mold, and assembled handmade.
It takes several days to prepare the paper material because most of the factories that make gift boxes do not produce paper itself, so they have to purchase the paper material from a factory specializing in producing paper. Unless they have some paper sheet in stock, that will save much time on ready in a day or two.
The paper purchased by the factories also needs to be die-cut to a suitable size for printing first.
Then move forward to printing. You may think the printing is high-speed. It is just one or two hours. As the printing machine always can work on tens of thousands of paper sheets in an hour.
That’s right, but before printing, the printer needs to adjust the color to match the provided sample. It takes a lot of time.
I experienced going to the printing factory to approval the color. The printer engineer adjusted one color for a day, which means that they just printed one color for all day. In addition, printing also needs to arrange orders, so it usually takes a week to prepare materials for printing.
After finishing the printing, it takes several days to wait for the ink to dry thoroughly on the printing paper. Otherwise, the printing pattern will be affected when the surface treatment is completed. Of course, what we are talking about here is ordinary offset printing. If you use U.V. printing, you don’t have to wait for the ink to dry because U.V. printing is a unique printing process that allows printing ink to dry quickly. It takes longer for the ink to dry in rainy and humid weather, from a few days to a week or two.
After the ink is thoroughly dry, the project can go on to do the surface treatment. Generally, the surface treatment is relatively fast, except for the surface treatment of some abrasive tools, such as hot stamping or embossed goods, which need a template to press. But for saving time, this process can be carried out at the same time when preparing materials or printing.
After the factory finishes the surface treatment, the next thing is to do a die-cut. Factory can also prepare Die-cut grinding tools according to the cut lines before. It is ordered to save time. Die-cut is very quick, whether fully automatic or semi-automatic, generally a few hours to complete.
After the die cut is finished, they were then assembled by hand. Manual assembly can happen from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the complexity of the paper box packaging. Ordinary paper box, base, and lid, book shape, generally a few days can be completed. If the number is small, or even a day can be enough. And then pack and ship. The gift box packaging is usually for one package packed into a polybag, then into the standard outer box or carton with K flute.
Judging from the time spent above, it is not difficult to see that it takes about 3-5 weeks to produce gift boxes, depending on the specific project.
Step 3: Shipping
There are several alternative ways for shipping, including by sea, by air, and express service. The last one is more expensive in turn, but faster.
Specific how long you can ask the forwarder to check the time for you and determine which way to take according to your requirements.
P.S.: if you find a supplier in China, you need to try your best to avoid orders before the Spring Festival, because the factories are busy before the Spring Festival, the workers want to go home early for the Spring Festival, and the freight is much more expensive than usual. So if your custom packaging project is not too urgent, you may choose to produce after the Chinese New Year or in advance and avoid such large-scale holidays as factories.
If you want to know more about the tips for custom packaging boxes, you can join us below!
