How Custom Sleeve Box Packaging Fosters Brand Loyalty and Boost Sales?
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Box Sleeves are Considered Distinct from Conventional Rigid Carton Box Packaging and Can Bring Bunches of Benefits to Business.
Packaging is omnipresent in the industrial age where consumers are taking the dring factor of market growth. Just as Soroka pointed out in the Fundamentals of Packaging Technology,
Especially for fast-moving consumer goods that rely on packaging to attract consumer´s attention and to generate sales leads, packaging plays an essential role as the first point of contact.
In this session, the professionals at ELITER Packaging Machinery, specialists in sleeving systems, would like to share with you our experiences and insights into carton sleeve packaging itself apart from the sleeving packaging systems we can provide to automate the process.
This article includes:
- A Brief Introduction to Cardboard Sleeve Packaging
- The Differences, Pros and Cons between Rigid Box and Sleeve Box
- Types of Sleeve Boxes
- Application of Sleeves
- A Case Study to Design Your Own Custom Sleeve Box
Sleeve is a Versatile Packaging that Doesn’t Compromise Protection or Strength
Sleeves, no matter whether made of paperboard, cardboard, kraft paper, or so forth, differ from traditional rigid packaging like carton boxes basically due to the fact sleeves are simpler in structure compared to the latter now that they have no ends or closing tucks and flaps, yet simply wrap around an article. Nevertheless, sleeves are more versatile and can fit a wide range of primary packaging in various sizes and shapes as well as formats which is a function that rigid boxes are not able to provide.
What are the Advantages Sleeve Boxes Have Over Carton Boxes?
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Sleeves fit primary packaging containers of unique shapes with strength and tightness
Sleeves can accommodate primary packaging with a special shape or size that rigid cartons cannot cover. A typical example is sleeves for glass bottles such as wine or Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) that carry, hold, and dispense a plurality of such glass bottles. Carton sleeves offer the strength to hold a plurality of tin cans of considerable weight and to replace the use of corrugated carton boxes, thus saving packaging costs and cutting down carbon footprint.
Sleeves when designed as wraparound carriers are supposed to retain securely a grouped arrangement of articles and primary packaging containers. On the contrary, if they are not wrapped tightly around in a group but simply packed in a carton box, the integrated package may get compromised now that they are able to move within the packaging, then even causing failure of falling out of the packaging and getting broken.
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Sleeves provide a better unboxing experience and promotional features
The unboxing experience plays a critical role in customer loyalty and retention. Previously data in marketing and consumer behavior studies has proven that approximately 1/3 of the companies investigated see increases in revenues after improving their unboxing experience. [2]
When applied to standard packaging such as for plastic trays of ready meals, sleeves outstrip the rigid cartons now that they are easy to remove, yet secure as packaging to both provide protection and additional space for printing of branding graphics and promotion indicia.
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Sleeves are designed with environmental concerns
Sleeves are preferable for cost and environmental concerns now that they are formed from fewer materials and cause less wastage during the recycling cycle.
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Sleeves Provide foundations for further innovations in design
Sleeve boxes can be designed with more innovations and artistic mindsets in distinctive shapes with cutouts, windows, specific foldings, and locks, while rigid boxes are always folded into cuboid or cubic shapes. A further edge that sleeves have over rigid boxes is that sleeves can be designed with apertures and closure tabs to fit those odd and peculiar shapes of containers tightly around their shape.
Applications of Sleeve Box & Carrier Packaging: The Assembly Forms
The way sleeves are assembled is not more than 2 forms: pre-glued, or unglued flat blanks, each one with its own specific situations of applications.
- Pre-Glued Sleeve
Pre-glued Packaging Sleeves are more common for those primary packaging containers wrapped individually and those with regular shapes. Pre-glued sleeve boxes come flat-packed and are simple to open and slide onto the product. Pre-glued sleeve boxes are more likely to be used in manual packaging situations where the worker assembles the blanks and pushes the product from the open end.
- Unglued Flat Sleeve Blanks
Unglued Flat Sleeve Blanks are a style of packaging that is shipped completely flat, without any pre-set glue. It is better to understand supposing that they are just pieces of cardboard blanks not folded or glued. Unglued flat sleeve blanks are most likely for machine use, or say, they rely on automatic packaging equipment to apply wraparound tightly around the product, meanwhile, the glue is applied automatically by the machine.
- Belly Band – A Light-Weight Variety of Cardboard Sleeve Packaging
Belly band packaging is similar to cardboard sleeving yet they are different in nature either for the materials used or for the form of packaging.
A Belly Band is usually a band of paper that wraps around the product or its primary packaging. It does not cover the entire product but rather ‘hugs’ the middle of it (thus the term ‘belly’). It typically displays additional information, and design elements, or serves as a seal. Belly bands tend to use thicker packaging materials, sometimes just a piece of printed paper. Belly band packaging is served by a banding machine which is a different equipment compared with a sleever or a sleeve cartoner.
Custom Cardboard Sleeve Packaging is Omnipresent in all Industries
Sleeves provide functions of branding as well as grouping a plurality of primary packaging containers and offering reliable and strong packaging protection and retention, apart from their most common application to serve as a sort of paperboard banding to a single primary packaging container – by “similar” we are actually addressing that banding and sleeving are actually different forms of packaging.
To move forward with concepts of how to design your own custom sleeve boxes or sleeve carriers, it is necessary to understand the roles sleeves play and the functions they provide when they are used for different products of different industries. This is essential for professionals such as packaging specialists at FMCG companies, marketing departments, graphic and packaging designers, and no doubt those who work for a packaging supplier company.
- Simple Slide and Match Style Sleeve Boxes – Cosmetics and Beauty Products
Slide-and-match sleeves are actually not any kind of cardboard sleeve but rather a kind of rigid box packaging without closed ends. A slide-and-match rigid box is constructed as a sliding wall that can be easily removed and replaced.
Luxury cosmetics and skin-care brands tend to opt for such kind of packaging, leaving products loaded in a tray where there is a soft base with a cutout to fit things like a glass bottle of perfume, then sliding them into a rigid match sleeve boxes resulting in a drawer style boxing and unboxing experience as well as a unique presentation of the product within.
- Individual Wraparound Packaging – Typical in the Ready Meals Industry
All the charm with ready meals is the convenience they bring in that people do not have to prepare the meal from scratch with just some minutes waiting alongside the microwave oven.
Just like any other food packaging sleeve, the printed cardboard sleeve that slides over the food tray or container provides a range of advantages for things like takeaway/home meals, frozen food, or fresh sealed food and is an ideal option for a food retail business.
- Multi or Cluster-Pack Wraparound Packaging – Cardboard Carrier that Faciliates the Handling
Sleeves can also be designed as cardboard carriers to handle a group of articles arranged in certain formats of multipack or clusterpack.
How to Design My Own Custom Sleeve Packaging?
Packaging is the foundamental factor for any company who would need to promote their products no matter in which industries they are. Designing adequate sleeve boxes requires a certain level of technical, engineering, and designer skills like measurement, typography, knowledge of material and packaging processes, and proficiency with software such as AutoCAD, Solidworks, Adobe Illustrator, etc.
The design of sleeve boxes depends on what kind of primary packaging container is supposed to be wrapped and details to focus on can vary a lot. We have as follows an example of design and draw sleeve blank for plastic trays of ready meal. We would still suggest you consult your packaging supplier and ask for professional support if you find yourself not capable of handling it or worry that the packaging design may be incorrect.
Case Study: Designing Your Own Custom Sleeve Boxes
The case study supposes a situation where you are a ready-meal company that plans to launch new products into the market. The size of the primary container is already confirmed unanimously within the company and the marketing as well as project departments are looking to come up with a sleeve blank design and sizes to order for samples for further review, then introduce them formally as the secondary packaging. The study provides a step-by-step guide about how to design the sleeve boxes for such a case.
Step 1. Confirm the size of your Primary Packaging Container
Determining the primary packaging container is the foundamental step of everything with designing sleeve boxes.
Custom sleeve boxes are specifically designed for each size of the container and cannot fit various of them with a single sleeve design. It is not like carton boxes that you may push different things into them as long as their overall size and volume do not go beyond the carton´s capacity.
With the above being said, the very first step is to firm up your primary packaging container, its shapes, and its sizes, presented as formal drawings. This is the essential step and lays the foundation for the designs of secondary packaging as well as to order of its packaging equipment for automated production afterward, for example, a thermoforming machine by ULMA or Multivac.
We hereby show an example of a black colored PE plastic tray covered by a transparent plastic lid.
Step 2. Measurement of the Primary Packaging for Sleeve’s Design
Despite the fact that we have already worked out our primary packaging drawing. We have to proceed further with an additional measurement either with a real sample or with the help of software.
The purpose is to measure roughly the overall contour of the sleeve box to be designed which should be formed and wrapped around the primary packaging container’s profile.
Step 3. Decide Sleeve Style and Draw Your Sleeve Box’s Preliminary Layout in Flat Blank
Before setting off to design and draw the sleeve box’s layout, decisions must be made in the first place with regard to the sleeve’s style.
Sleeves are more flexible and artistic compared with rigid boxes now that they may come with cutouts, windows, curves, irregular profiles and even until those most special patterns you may have never imagined of.
With this case study, we only focus on the most common sleeve style of full coverage around the primary packaging container. Once the sleeve style is determined, you are now able to draw the sleeve’s flat blank layout with the data acquired in Step 2. about the container’s overall profile and contour.
Step 4. Decide the Materials Used for Your Sleeve Box Packaging
You must consider the packaging materials used for your sleeve box packaging now that sometimes they are supposed to keep the products in low temperature and high humidity environment such as yogurt cups wrapped by the sleeve and kept on the frozen shelf of the grocery shop. Some options are:
- Solid Bleached Sulfate (SBS): SBS is a type of premium paperboard that is known for its brightness, smoothness, and high-quality printability. It is commonly used for high-end products to give a more premium feel.
- Kraft Paper: Made from chemical pulp produced in the kraft process, this material is strong, recyclable, and biodegradable.
- Coated Unbleached Kraft Paperboard (CUK) or Solid Unbleached Sulfate (SUS): It is durable like SBS, with a characteristic natural brown color because it’s unbleached.
- Recycled Paper: An eco-friendly option for brands conscious of their environmental impact. It can be just as sturdy and attractive as regular paper. Different levels of post-consumer waste can be used depending on your brand’s preferences.
Step 5. Prepare Test Samples and Find Details that Need Improvement
Deviations can happen frequently during all the processes. For example, measurement with the tray is subject to slight errors when it is done by rulers with tray samples; tray samples are also subject to deviations during the production processes when transformed from drawing into tangible real articles when they are produced at your supplier’s facility, this is the same to sleeve samples ordered from suppliers.
You should repetitively test your sleeve samples in accordance with your trays to find out potential details that need improvement such as:
- The bottom flap is too long the the fringe surpasses the another side wall that has the glue flap
- The side walls are too short that they cannot reach the bottom surface of the tray
- The top wall is too wide that the packaging formed is loose
- etc…
When problems are detected, you should go back to step 3 to revise your sleeve box’s layout drawings.
What’s Next? – You May Need Packaging Automation
Having your packaging designed and ready in place is still not the end of all. Cardboard sleeve packaging can either be as simple as being packed with just a manual insertion or they may be designed with retention tabs, locks, and cutouts to secure packaging containers like bottles, cans, and cups in multipack groups that manual works are not able to cover. The next step after the packaging design is probably to consider implementing packaging automation and looking for packaging machines for your sleeve packaging processes.
If you are already here at this step, ELITER Packaging Machinery – cartoning expert and sleeving specialist, is at your disposal to have your problem solved, operational processes streamlined by our wrap-around cartoning machines and sleever machines.
Bibliography
- [1] Soroka (2002) Fundamentals of Packaging Technology, Institute of Packaging Professionals ISBN 1-930268-25-4
- [2] The Power of Packaging You Probably Did Not Know About, Packaging of the World, July 3rd, 2017, Derrick Lin, https://packagingoftheworld.com/2017/07/the-power-of-packaging-you-probably-did.html
