Custom Ecommerce Product Boxes
In a shop the retail box sits on a shelf and a separate carton gets it there. Selling direct removes the shelf entirely, and with it the reason to buy two boxes — if the one you keep can survive a courier network.
- Builds
- Litho-laminated corrugated outers, tuck top mailers, die-cut ecommerce boxes
- Board
- E flute for light contents, B flute as the working default
- Features
- Tear strips, return adhesive strips, printed inner faces
Get a price for Ecommerce Product Boxes
Send the size and quantity — we reply the same working day with a price, a dieline and a date. Artwork optional at this stage.
- Free dielineThe flat drawing comes with the quote, before you commit.
- Proof before pressNothing is printed until you have seen it laid on the dieline.
- Die kept for reordersTooling is paid once. Every reorder skips straight to press.
- Quoted in four marketsUS, UK, Canada and Australia, in the delivery currency.
What the single box has to survive
A retail box was designed to look good under shop lighting and to be handled by one careful person. A shipper was designed to be dropped on a corner, stacked under a pallet and left in rain. Asking one box to do both means specifying for the second and finishing for the first.
That is entirely possible — a litho-laminated corrugated box prints photographically and takes a courier network — and it costs more per unit than either box alone. The saving is in buying one instead of two, plus the labour of packing one inside the other.
Not every product suits this. Anything fragile still wants an outer, because the box that protects it should be the box you are willing to see damaged.
Size decides the carrier band, and the band decides the cost
Cutting 20 mm from each dimension of a mid-sized parcel can move an entire product line into a cheaper band across every order — the arithmetic is in our guide to how carriers charge by volume.
| Letterbox depth | Under the threshold, it posts at the cheapest rate available |
|---|---|
| Small parcel | The common band; worth trimming a box to reach |
| Medium parcel | Where most ecommerce sits by default rather than by choice |
| Over a threshold | A few millimeters can cost more than the box does |
Opening it is part of the product
- A tear strip turns unboxing into five seconds and removes knife damage to the contents.
- The inner faces are in full view during that; printing them is a second pass and no board.
- Loose void fill reads as landfill in a video and has to be dug through.
- Anything needing scissors interrupts the moment entirely.
The return is the second half of the job
A large share of ecommerce orders come back, and in apparel and footwear it is most of them. A second adhesive strip below the first lets the customer reseal the same box, which removes a whole second pack and a decision from them.
It only works if the first opening leaves the box intact, so the tear strip and the return strip have to be designed together rather than added separately.
Print that survives the journey it is designed for
Heavy dark full-bleed print scuffs on a conveyor and shows every mark by the time it reaches a doorstep. A lighter ground, or kraft with a strong one-color print, arrives looking deliberate rather than damaged.
That is a real constraint that retail packaging never faces, and it is the commonest reason a design that looked right on screen looks tired in a customer photograph.
Ecommerce Product Boxes — specification
The rows that are specific to this build first, then what applies to every job we run. Anything not listed is a question, not a limit — send the brief.
This build
- Builds
- Litho-laminated corrugated outers, tuck top mailers, die-cut ecommerce boxes
- Board
- E flute for light contents, B flute as the working default
- Features
- Tear strips, return adhesive strips, printed inner faces
- Sizing
- Set against carrier bands rather than around the product alone
- Outer and inner; lighter grounds where scuffing matters
- Minimum
- 100 boxes
On every job
- Print process
- Flexo in one to four colors straight onto the liner; litho-lamination where the box needs full color or a photograph.
- Color
- Flat colors on kraft. Full color needs a white top liner or a laminated sheet, because brown shifts every color warm.
- Tolerance
- Cutting plus or minus 1.5 mm. The flute compresses, so corrugated runs wider than folding board.
- Tooling
- No die on a regular slotted box, which is cut on a slotter. Die-cut mailers and trays need one, made once and kept.
- Food contact
- Food-grade liners and a vented build where the box carries hot food.
- Sustainability
- High recycled content through liners and flute as standard, and the box recycles whole if it is sealed with paper tape.
- Artwork
- Vector PDF or AI, 3 mm bleed, 4 mm safe area, fonts outlined. We check every file and send a proof before press.
- Dieline
- Supplied free with the quote, before you commit. Yours whether or not you order.
- Sample
- A plain unprinted sample at the finished size on request, for fit and construction.
- Reorders
- Skip the tooling and go straight to press at a lower unit price.
- Lead time
- Quoted with the price against your fill date rather than promised before we have seen the spec.
- Markets
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia — priced in the delivery currency, freight included.
Boards and films we build ecommerce product boxes on
Corrugated is a fluted sheet glued between two liners, and the flute decides nearly everything: how it prints, how it dents, how high it stacks. These are the grades we run.
E flute
About 1.5 mm. Prints well and folds crisply; dents under a stack. Retail boxes, mailers and light shippers.
1.5 mm, single wallB flute
About 3 mm. The working default for parcels — takes print reasonably and stacks reasonably. Most shipping boxes are B.
3 mm, single wallC flute
About 4 mm. More cushioning than B, slightly less stacking strength per weight. Common on grocery and produce cases.
4 mm, single wallBC double wall
B and C glued together, about 7 mm. Heavy or fragile goods, pallet stacking, anything over roughly 15 kg.
7 mm, double wallKraft liner
Brown, strong, absorbent. One or two flat colors flexo print well on it; photographs drink into the brown and go muddy.
Outer and inner linerWhite top liner
A bleached outer liner for full-color print on corrugated. Costs more and marks more easily than kraft.
Outer liner onlyRecycled-content corrugated
High post-consumer fiber through liners and flute. The default for shippers; a slightly greyer brown and no loss of strength at grade.
All flutesCoated and water-resistant
A coating or a wax-free barrier liner for damp stores and cold chains. Check the recycling stream before printing a claim on it.
B and C fluteNot sure which? Say what goes in it and where it is sold — the material follows from that. Our notes on recycled, recyclable and compostable cover which claims each stock can honestly carry.
- 01
Send what you have
A dimension, a photograph beside a ruler, or the product itself. No technical drawing needed — that part is ours.
- 02
We quote and draw
A price, a dieline and a date come back together. If a different build would suit the product better, that is in the reply too.
- 03
Approve the dieline
The flat drawing is yours to check: which panel is the front, where the folds fall, how deep the cavity really is.
- 04
Artwork on the dieline
You place your design on the flat we sent, or we place it for you, and you see a proof before anything goes to press.
- 05
A sample if you want one
A plain unprinted sample at the finished size shows fit and construction — the things a drawing cannot.
- 06
Cut, printed, shipped
The die is cut once and kept, so every reorder skips the tooling and goes straight to press at a lower unit price.
Format
Vector PDF or AI where possible. Raster artwork at 300dpi at final size, in CMYK.
Bleed
3 mm past every trim line, so a fraction of drift on the cutter never leaves a white edge.
Safe area
Keep type and anything important 4 mm inside the cut and away from every fold.
Color
Convert to CMYK before sending. Uncoated stock prints lighter; a spot color is the only exact match.
Fonts
Outline them or supply the files. A missing font substitutes silently and the proof will not match.
Barcodes
On a light, matte, unvarnished patch with the quiet zone clear — a code on gloss fails the scanner.
Not set up that way? Send it anyway — fixing a file is a short conversation, and we check every one before press. Our guide to preparing print files covers each point.
Corrugated takes fewer finishes than folding board, and the ones it takes it takes well.
Flexo on kraft
One or two flat colors straight onto brown. Cheap, fast, honest.
Litho-lamination
An offset sheet glued to the flute: full color and photographs on a shipper.
Aqueous varnish
Scuff resistance with no film, so the box still recycles whole.
White top print
Full color flexo on a bleached liner; brighter, and it marks more easily.
Inside print
A second pass on the inner liner — the panel a customer sees first.
Printed tape seal
The brand applied at the last moment, on paper tape that recycles with the box.
Not sure which suits the shelf it sells from? Say where the product is sold and we suggest one — our notes on specialty finishes show them on real boxes.
Sizing a corrugated box against the carrier, not the catalog: ecommerce product boxes
Corrugated is cut to your internal size, so the box goes round the product rather than the product going into a stock size. That is where the money is: a box 20 mm smaller each way is often a whole postage band cheaper.
- Internal dimensions
- Length, width and depth of the space you need. Board thickness is added outside that, and the flute is thicker than people expect.
- Clearance and void fill
- 5–10 mm a side for a rigid product. Size it properly and you need no void fill at all, which is cheaper and better received.
- Stacking
- Tell us how high the boxes stack on a pallet or a shelf. Edge crush grade is specified from that, not guessed.
- Weight
- The contents weight sets the flute and the liner grade. Over about 15 kg we move to double wall.
- Score allowance
- Corrugated needs more room at the folds than boxboard. The dieline accounts for it; a box drawn from flat dimensions comes out tight.
- Cutting tolerance
- Plus or minus 1.5 mm on corrugated, wider than folding board because the flute compresses.
Not sure your numbers are right? Send the product dimensions rather than the box dimensions and we work the box out — the full method is in our guide to measuring for a box.
Interactive · five steps · no sign-up
Build your Ecommerce Product Boxes in 3D
Pick a shape, type a size, choose a board and a finish. The preview on the left redraws as you go, and the spec lands with us exactly as you set it.
Frequently asked questions
Got a question about ecommerce product boxes? The answers below cover what we get asked most. If yours is not here, send it with a brief, message us on WhatsApp, or call +1 503-461-4788 — we reply the same working day.
Can one box really do both jobs?
For most non-fragile products, yes — specify it as a shipper and finish it as retail packaging.
What size should it be?
Whatever puts you under a carrier threshold. A few millimeters either side of a band can cost more than the box.
Is a return strip worth it?
In apparel and footwear, almost always — it removes a second pack from every return.
Why does my printed box look scuffed on arrival?
Heavy dark full-bleed print marks on a conveyor. A lighter ground or kraft with one color travels far better.
Should I ship fragile items in the retail box alone?
No — fragile items still want a separate outer, because the box that protects them should be the one you are willing to see damaged.
Can I print the interior for unboxing videos?
Yes, and it is worth doing — the interior is what is on screen for the whole reveal, not the exterior.
Can one box really do both jobs?
For most non-fragile products, yes — specify it as a shipper and finish it as retail packaging. Fragile items still want a separate outer.
What size should it be?
Whatever puts you under a carrier threshold. A few millimeters either side of a band can cost more than the box.
Is a return strip worth it?
In apparel and footwear, almost always — it removes a second pack from every return.
Why does my printed box look scuffed on arrival?
Heavy dark full-bleed print marks on a conveyor. A lighter ground or kraft with one color travels far better.
Same range
