The brief was blunt: cut packaging waste, keep the unboxing premium, and stop mixing materials that confuse recycling streams. The brand ships 20,000–30,000 orders a month across North America, mostly small rings and necklaces that are sensitive to crush and scuff during transit. Early audits showed too many mixed substrates and printed embellishments that looked great on screen but complicated recovery.
The turning point came when the team partnered with uline boxes to run a structured packaging audit. We mapped their SKUs, calculated CO₂/pack baselines (around 120–140 g per standard mailer), and tested combinations of Corrugated Board and FSC-certified Kraft Paper with Water-based Ink. Nice designs weren’t the problem; the system was. Our job, as the sustainability lead, was to align aesthetics with recyclability, and do it without stretching costs out of shape.
Company Overview and History
The brand started as a studio-sized jeweler in 2016 and scaled into a DTC operation with a broad SKU range—seasonal drops, limited-edition collections, and steady core pieces. Their fulfillment is centralized in Ohio, with regional 3PL support for returns. Historically, packaging leaned on off-the-shelf corrugated mailers plus void fill. Breakage averaged 1.5–2.0% on small pendants, and the team compensated by over-packaging. It protected goods, sure, but at a cost: more material, more waste, and a poor recycling signal for consumers.
Early trials included consumer-grade options to benchmark expectations—think lowe's moving boxes for a basic sense of what customers saw as sturdy. Those boxes helped the team set a baseline for structural strength but weren’t tailored to jewelry: inserts were generic, compression was uneven, and unboxing felt clunky. The brand’s packaging needed to feel considered and compact, not like a general moving kit.
For premium SKUs, the brand occasionally used satin-lined gift formats and tested uline jewelry boxes for curated drops. Those scored high for presentation but introduced a second-box inside the shipper, which drove material use up. The team wanted a single, recyclable shipper with a crisp interior insert—something that could carry brand marks via Digital Printing while keeping color targets tight.
Sustainability and Compliance Pressures
North American recyclers kept giving the same feedback: keep it simple. Mixed materials and heavy coatings confuse sortation. The brand set a target to move CO₂/pack into the 90–110 g range for standard shipments and committed to FSC sourcing across corrugated. We aligned with SGP principles for process discipline, specified Water-based Ink, and removed plastics except where needed for product integrity. It wasn’t about perfection; it was about clarity for recovery streams and fewer borderline decisions at MRFs.
Here’s where the market context mattered. Customers routinely ask practical questions like does target have moving boxes—they’re price-anchoring on familiar retail options. That consumer frame shows up in support tickets and surveys. People think in terms of retail moving boxes even when buying fine jewelry. So the brand had to balance perceived sturdiness with actual right-sizing and sustainable signaling.
One misstep: a Spot UV panel tested well in studio but flagged at a recycler as potentially problematic. We pulled Spot UV off the exterior and used light Varnishing only where scuff resistance mattered, reserving finishes for small interior marks. The color team also had to rein in bold gloss-on-matte effects—beautiful, but not strictly necessary. Keeping it within a clear, mono-material corrugated profile made downstream handling easier.
Solution Design and Configuration
We chose E-flute Corrugated Board with an FSC-certified Kraft liner for the shipper, designed a die-cut cradle insert, and limited finishes to Varnishing for rub resistance. Long-run brand marks went via Flexographic Printing (one- and two-color work), while seasonal drops used Digital Printing for variable art and lower MOQs. Water-based Ink was mandatory; Low-Migration Ink wasn’t required for jewelry, but the water-based system with low-VOC profiles aligned with the brand’s charter. The company short-listed shipping boxes uline alongside two regional corrugated suppliers to compare spec tolerances and lead times.
Operator notes: changeovers on the digital line now average 12–15 minutes (down from 20–25), and file prep moved into a stricter preflight to control dielines and ink laydown. On flexo, registration tolerances tightened and we formalized a G7 approach for color aims. People often benchmark costs by asking how much are moving boxes at ups—we translated that mindset into a total cost per shipped order, not per box. That shifted discussions toward damage rates, returns, and kWh/pack, not just unit price.
We set a color threshold of ΔE 2–3 for key brand hues. Digital Printing handled micro-variations across seasonal designs without resetting plates, while Flexographic Printing kept the evergreen marks consistent at volume. The insert geometry went through three iterations; the first version gripped too tightly and scuffed satin cords. After tests on paperboard and Glassine liners, we landed on a kraft-based insert with micro-perfs that spread pressure and cut scuffing without adding new materials.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Six months in, waste rate moved from ~6–7% to ~4–5% across typical SKUs, measured as scrap from structural and print rejects. FPY% sits around 92–94% on stabilized designs (up from 86–88%). Throughput averages 1,100–1,300 packs/hour on the digital line for short drops, and 8,000–10,000 packs/shift on flexo for steady runs. CO₂/pack estimates now cluster around 95–105 g for the standard mailer configuration, depending on insert styles.
Breakage on small pendants now hovers near 0.8–1.2%, the insert geometry helped, and customer complaints on crushed corners dropped. Returns driven by packaging faults declined by around a third in the same period. We did see one curveball: a holiday black ink set introduced slight banding on kraft at high speed. The fix was simple—tune the anilox and drop speed by ~10%, then roll back up with a revised Varnishing setting.
The Ops Director’s quote holds up because the packaging system—not just the box—changed: mono-material where possible, Water-based Ink, restrained finishing, and color control that respects recyclability. People will still anchor on retail comparisons—lowe's moving boxes, does target have moving boxes, or how much are moving boxes at ups—but this project reframed cost around avoided damage, cleaner recovery, and consistent brand presentation. For this team, the partnership with uline and the work around uline boxes brought structure to decisions that used to be ad hoc.
