I'm planning on selling some plushies at markets, as well as online. I've got a question for those who sell at markets: how do you package your items, and what kinds of things do you include on your packaging?

I have made up a prototype, but I'm not 100% happy with the packaging design. See pics below. (Ignore the crappy bag. I am trying to work out dimensions so I can buy proper bags, so just invented one for the moment out of cellophane) The bag toppers will be properly printed, but basically it's a piece of card folded over with the top of the bag inside the fold. The topper is attached with brads (paper fasteners), and I cut out two flowers using scrap plastic I use for my shadow puppets. There's also a hole in the bag topper for hanging up on a display. I'll probably make the flowers bigger on future ones.

The bag topper has the name of the object on the front. On the back, a little about the plushie, the url/logo/slogan for my business, and a warning (not to be used with children, etc). Once you open the topper there's also some more info about the plushie on the other side of the paper.

Ignoring the fact that the bag and topper are crummy prototypes: does it look ok? Do I need to add any more info?

No I think you have it covered for text. Visually I would square the bottom of the tags instead of rounding the corners. Time management wise I might even square of the entire tag if they have to be cut by hand. The brads are kind of neat, but again take more time then just a simple staple.  Since they are a one of a kind item though you may not want to lose that element.  Do think maybe the flower could be a bit bigger.

My thoughts are, what future sales do you plan for? If you what to sell a lot of them packaging needs to be the fastest and lowest cost possible.  Taking note that you said you would be purchasing bags...if you have the top label professionally printed you can skip the flowers and staple them as Shawn suggested.  Also, you might want to look into the child safety information.  Here in the US anything for children under 10-13 has to be product tested and labeled for specific ages, so we market only to adults.

Do not print the price on the top label...as you might have to change prices later, but do mark  the price somewhere visible only a few at a time, .people don't like to ask the price. 

Also, you could include a piece of paper, card stock inside the bag behind it to give a color backing to the Plushie.  Since she doesn't have a face the color behind would accent the open area.

Remember just like food, people purchase with their eyes first. It has to catch their attention. 

Also, you will want to tag the product with the website as well.  Once they throw away the bag they may forget where they purchased and might want to purchase more later for gifts.  You can purchase premade label as a pretty low cost.  I'll look up the company we use and post it later.  We get them from the Netherlands.  They come in about 2 weeks after initial order.  You can iron, sew or glue them on.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Julie

No I think you have it covered for text. Visually I would square the bottom of the tags instead of rounding the corners. Time management wise I might even square of the entire tag if they have to be cut by hand. The brads are kind of neat, but again take more time then just a simple staple.  Since they are a one of a kind item though you may not want to lose that element.  Do think maybe the flower could be a bit bigger.

I did try with square corners, but didn't like it much. I'm thinking that the actual front of the label is just a bit plain. Not sure how to fancy it up yet. Also, there are round corner punches which aren't that expensive. I may hand-cut the first batch, and then when there's enough money buy a punch or two.

The brads aren't actually all that much extra work. I need to attach the toppers somehow (meaning punching holes or stapling) and the brads match the style of the brand more than staples do. So it takes about 5 seconds more - the flowers too I am hoping to just use a punch, so it's again not the much extra time spent.

I do agree in general though about time wasting, but if you consider that the bags will be bought; the toppers printed; the holes/corners/whatever punched... it's not that time consuming. I would still have to find a way to package them, and I think if they're popular I can always upgrade the packaging when the money is available. Upgrading in this case might be to a box or something.

My thoughts are, what future sales do you plan for? If you what to sell a lot of them packaging needs to be the fastest and lowest cost possible.  Taking note that you said you would be purchasing bags...if you have the top label professionally printed you can skip the flowers and staple them as Shawn suggested.  Also, you might want to look into the child safety information.  Here in the US anything for children under 10-13 has to be product tested and labeled for specific ages, so we market only to adults.

I'm looking at selling these at craft/design markets, as well as online.

Safety info has already been heavily researched and labels have been designed, printed and shipped.. The US has considerably different regulations in regards to toy packaging, although I have compared both my local state/federal laws with US ones in the hopes of covering both. The state/federal ones are much less stringent than in the US. As far as I can tell I have met my local obligations - I will be marketing to adults, but like with all other things, utterly expect nobody to pay attention and still buy them for kids so I'm covered either way.

As I said to Shawn, either way I'm going to be needing to package and label these things so to me putting it in a bag with a topper is about the same cost as putting it in a box with other labelling. (Do remember that obtaining bulk items like packaging is not as easy to get here than in the US. Even scrapbooking punches have to be specially ordered, or else there's only a very limited supply in very few craft stores. Heck, I wanted to buy big bottles of acrylic paints the other day and walked into a city craft store to see only white and yellow available!)

In my case, fastest is not necessarily lowest cost. Fastest would be sticking the suckers in boxes, but then I have to find appropriate boxes and also worry about printing a design or text onto them, and/or including a paper receipt-thing inside. For markets more important is visibility and weather-proofing. I did look at many blogs and pinterest pages on packaging, but mostly people are wrapping their plushies in crepe paper (Etsy people have seriously complicated packaging!) and ribbons/etc and then into a shipping box. Which works for shipping but not so much for markets.

Do not print the price on the top label...as you might have to change prices later, but do mark  the price somewhere visible only a few at a time, .people don't like to ask the price. 

Yeah I actually realised as I was packing the prototype that there was no pricing on it. But that's because I haven't yet fully calculated what the price will be, so that was just lucky. I'll probably get some stickers for that.

Also, you could include a piece of paper, card stock inside the bag behind it to give a color backing to the Plushie.  Since she doesn't have a face the color behind would accent the open area.

Interesting idea. I didn't really think about backing it - if they are in bags and backed with some paper or something, will that affect people wanting to buy it? If I'm looking at something like that, my tendency is to want to see what the back looks like as well as the front. But maybe I'm pedantic

Also, you will want to tag the product with the website as well.  Once they throw away the bag they may forget where they purchased and might want to purchase more later for gifts.  You can purchase premade label as a pretty low cost.  I'll look up the company we use and post it later.  We get them from the Netherlands.  They come in about 2 weeks after initial order.  You can iron, sew or glue them on.

See above. The labels have logo, business name, URL, washing info/pictogram and safety info. They have been purchased from someone on Etsy who I've gone through before. They will be sewn into the plushie when they arrive.

At the moment, the big issue is packaging.

Oh, worth mentioning is that the plushies will be one of a kind anyway, so I don't mind individualising the packaging a bit.


... Overall, (both of you): is the whole thing needing to be different, or does it just need to be tweaked? I'm happy to look for different packaging ideas, but I thought finding bags would be relatively easy and toppers could be quickly printed. I'd really love to get display boxes like with Barbie dolls but I suspect finding them and getting them printed on would be too tough.

This company is in AU. http://www.magnetpackaging.com.au/products/resealable-bags.html

This company is in AU. http://www.magnetpackaging.com.au/products/resealable-bags.html

Thanks. I hadn't seen that site before. I've taken a bare glance at how much plastic bags cost in bulk; the problem with the link above is they don't say whether the price is per bag. Other sites list a per bag pricing, and then require a minimum order. So for instance, the cheapest bag I looked at on the above site was $13 AUD. The carton quantity was 1000. Now either it's $13 for the whole 1000 bags per carton, or it's $13 per bag X 1000. And yes, there were some sites that worked out to be thousands of dollars just for one shipment.

This is why I said that cheap and easy aren't quite the same. I don't have the funds to buy 1000 bags, not unless it's extremely cheap in bulk. I'd have to look into it more though, first I thought I'd mock up the prototype so I'd know exactly what it would look like and what dimensions I'd need to look for. -- The other issue is that the plushie is an irregular size so I'm wondering whether I can find the right dimensions.

On the other hand, after posting what I did I had a rethink. There's no reason I can't display the plushies as is at a market, with a hang tag, then use crepe paper and a sticker to wrap for shipping (plus postage pack) or a paper craft/glassine bag for those who buy at the market. That would also obviously be the cheaper/easier option, I just liked the bagged look more than the other and have been worried about sticky fingers at markets.

I've just redone my bag topper into a hang tag and will hopefully have a prototype of that posted tomorrow for comparison.

Based in the type of bags we use, i'd say that is the price per case, 1000 bags in a case.

When we sell at a conference the only packaging we use is the bag for the customer to carry. For shipping papaer in bottom, puppet, paper on top in a standard size box based on quantity of products.  I have found the more folks can touch the puppets, the more likely they will purchase. 

If I were packaging a product for retail locations then, yes I would package as you've planned.

Thanks - I think I will be going with the hang tag and paper wrapping instead. I just tried two versions, one with some of the scrap plastic for the 'hanging' and one with just some white cotton thread. I like the cotton thread better... The tag itself is also probably too big.

And then this way the only bags I need are kraft bags which I can easily find at my art store.

I like the hang tag idea better. Also like the change in formatting for the front. Thread is better.  

Here is a a wild off the top of my head idea... not even sure if it is possible. Speech/thought bubble! Wouldn't it be cool to see them sitting on a table and the tag sticking up over the head like a speech bubble!?  Like I said kind of a hair brained idea but then again sometimes the unique is what sells something and as you said these are one of kinds. Maybe it is time to invest in the cutting machine.