Pakible (YC W15) Makes It Dead Simple for Businesses to Design, Ship Packaging
techcrunch.comHey guys and gals,
Glad you are tackling this problem. I run a company that rebrands and does some ODM designs in China. Getting packaging quotes in the US has been a frustrating and confusing process.
Here's a few reasons I still get all my packaging done in china:
1. Instruction Manuals. Ever tried to have them printed to go with your box designs? Box designers are typically not "full service" in that respect. Here are two examples of instruction manuals that I need:
a) High gloss, multi-page booklet. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0123/9252/files/Ambassador... b) Single folded piece of paper: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0123/9252/files/instruction...
2. Foam inserts. Offer me paper inserts to hold my product or cut EVA foam.
As a small business owner you need full service to make your offer attractive. Foam cutting may be more difficult but please let customers print small instruction manuals on paper or folded booklets at reasonable prices.
> We assumed there would be a Teespring for packaging. But there wasn’t, so we decided to go ahead and do it.
Have you folks seen the bags that Teespring ships with? All cool branded logos and such on them. Do you imagine that you'll be offering something like this? To me, it seems by selling branded courier bags like that would mean people purchase in bulk from you and can be used for more rather than just focusing on boxes. (I imagine there'd be a whole lot less overhead and such. But I'm no expert!)
They also ship air fresher stuff in their bags. I imagine that would be a pretty neat thing to have with your service!
Best of luck. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
EDIT: Have you guys seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLDA2miW7gg I've got a few friends that sell their music on vinyl, and they would literally go crazy and throw money at you if they could get something like in that video, but branded etc. (sorry if these suggestions have been put into the idea bin already!)
We love Teespring's bags.
We're trying to find a good way to make these available to customize at low volume.
Can't wait to see!
A few observations:
- from your configurator, it's not 100% clear where each bit of info from the Text form goes on the box and if they're optional or not
- the sample boxes on your site appear to show a mark only logo, no text (judging from its side placement on LaunchBox and Mini boxes). in this particular case, it makes sense that a Brand/Company/Product name at the very least would have to be additionally printed.
1) What happens when a user insists on printing a more complex logo containing both a mark and text typeset in their preferred typeface?
- It is enough to just upload a flattened vectorised file and simply leave the Brand Name and/or Tagline field(s) empty?
2) What file types do you accept for the logo?
1) We handle this offline with the customer. The prototype 3D/2D editors we're developing right now should make it a lot easier in the future.
2) ai, eps, svg, png, jpg, pdf... anything really. But preferably vector graphics (will give best print resolution)
Awesome service and dead simple to use. I got 10 boxes made in no time at all. :-)
This is awesome. I was planning on doing custom boxes for us someday, but I put it off because of the headache of dealing with existing companies in the industry. Excited to use Pakible, and to be able to test out different designs without sending a freaking fax (or 20 emails).
Dang, this is perfect, but none of your box sizes fit what I'm shipping. Any plans to add more size options?
planning to launch a new style each week. perhaps I should add a voting option for the next style to add to the site
+1. I need to be able to ship 20x20" matted prints (so, big but relatively flat), and finding a safe and easy means to ship these prints sucks.
Incidentally, I'd love to be able to ship a bunch of product off to Level and have them frame and drop-ship my prints (hint, hint!)
Additionally, we did product packaging for Level, custom. For now, if you need 1,000+ units we can do custom!
Unfortunately, I'm not quite at the point of shipping off 1,000+ hand printed and toned silver gelatin prints, but someday, I hope :)
hear hear. we saw the launch via pg's tweet, but the available sizes also aren't that great for us.
I would create 3D WebGL animations for every box type, updated in real time.
agreed. we have a prototype of that feature using three.js to give you a 3D look at your packaging.
What about customizations like foam or polystyrene inserts? Is the design process just limited to the box itself?
Wish there was samples or at least an example creator so I can see what our branded box would look like.
Working on adding that shortly. In the meantime we do email you a proof of your design before we send it for print
The site's design is not terrible, it is quite unique and therefore interesting. But I still gotta say that the elements on the main page are too drawn out: https://i.imgur.com/Xvs0F80.png
Also, kinda nitpicky but still, while the page is loading it looks like this which is quite ugly: https://i.imgur.com/dIBdD5g.png
When this business name was chosen, did that process actually involve the firing of a synapse in someone's cerebral cortex?
People are going to be put off by a by what looks like a portmanteau of "Paki" and some word ending in "ble".
Large numbers of people, I suspect.
Gee, let's make up a venture name by adding a common suffix to an ethnic slur!
I'm Pakistani and one of two partners at YC who works closest with Pakible. This thought has literally never crossed my mind in 5 months since we funded them.
it hasn't been a problem. thanks for your concern though.
in case you're curious:
The name we selected was "Packable" = packaging + enable/capable/etc.
But the domain was already taken. We searched for alterations of that until we landed on pakible.com being available.
I'm skeptical; I mean, when you start a venture, you hope that it takes off. Will it still not be a problem if you gain 10, 30, 50 times the attention that you have now?
Good luck, though! Whatever bumps you hit, you will sort out along the way.
One good thing is that the name's phonology doesn't have the issue; just the spelling. Phonetically, it's just "packable".
I was not even aware "Paki" was a slur that refers to Pakistani individuals and never would have made the connection and I'm doubtful the average person would either. It's clearly a packaging company and so the mind makes that connection when reading the name.
Paki, an ethnic slur? I would've thought it was short for Pakistani.
Maybe this will help you:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Paki
Starting with the very first sentence under "Usage notes".
In summary, a strict prefix of some place name or nationality is not automatically a harmless contraction. For instance, "Jap" is not a word which has exactly the same nuance as "person of Japanese descent".
Fair enough, but it's not a US-centric thing (which is the bulk of YC companies), so I highly doubt that "fired a synapse" for the founders when they came up with the name.
When the Pakistan cricket team tours down here in Australia, they're colloquially referred to as "the Pakis", but that's because we colloquialise EVERYTHING, and has nothing to do with slurring anybody.
Neal Stephenson writes about this in one of his books -- not sure which. A character wonders why "Brit" or "Ausie" are acceptable, while "Jap" or "Paki" are not.
He doesn't mention the use of the word Paki by neo-nazi far-right racists.
Edit: in the UK it's almost always a slur. I can see how in other places it's just an abbreviation.
If you're going to downvote this, at least respond. I was asking a genuine question.