Do Your Packaging Designs Need An Update? A Guide to Smarter, Sustainable Corrugated Design Solutions

Your packaging does much more than simply transport your product, it protects your reputation, streamlines your operations, and serves as your brand’s first physical handshake with the customer.

For businesses across the UK, from busy e-commerce fulfilment centres to food processors, sticking with outdated or generic off the shelf stock boxes can often lead to hidden costs. Whether it’s paying to ship air, dealing with transit damage, or facing the new packaging tax liabilities, the wrong box can be a burden on your bottom line.

At Manor Packaging, we take a consultative, design-focused approach. We design and manufacture bespoke corrugated packaging that aligns with your supply chain, automation goals, and sustainability targets.

Is Your Packaging Still Working Hard for Your Business?

It’s worth reviewing your packaging specifications if you notice any of these warning signs that your current packaging solution might be holding you back:

• Product returns are too high or rising: If goods are arriving damaged, your current board grade or structural design likely isn’t robust enough for the journey.
• Your Packing is slowing you down: Lengthy packing time, or if your team relies on excessive tape and messy void fill to make products fit, your current box design is costing you valuable time and money.
• You’re paying to ship air: Couriers charge by volume as well as weight, so if you are using oversized boxes, you are paying for empty space.
• Automation issues: If your boxes are getting stuck in your case erectors, you need precision manufacturing to make sure they run smoothly on high-speed lines.
• Regulatory pressure: Ignoring the UK packaging regulations can be an expensive mistake. Consider your options to lessen the burden on your business.
• Brand misalignment: If your brand has changed but your packaging looks old or inconsistent, you could be missing an important marketing opportunity.

How Does Intelligent Design Reduce Your Total Costs?

Updating your packaging shouldn’t be seen as an expense; it’s an investment in efficiency and your business. By applying our consultative approach and expertise, we can often reduce your total packaging cost without compromising on packaging protection.

• Right-sizing: Using our CAD capabilities and experience, we can optimise the internal dimensions of your packaging. Often reducing the outer footprint by just a few millimetres can drop your parcels into a lower courier tariff bracket.
• Smart material choices: We can help you switch to a different paper flute combination that enhances print quality and stacking strength, without adding extra weight.
• Optimising logistics: Our precision-engineered bespoke boxes are designed to suit the journey of your boxes. Maximising pallet efficiencies,  fewer vehicle movements and a reduction in your carriage costs.

Read our guide to packaging mistakes that cost you money to find out how certain common design choices can hurt your bottom line.

Can a Box Redesign Speed Up Your Packing Line?

Time is money, and that’s especially true in e-commerce and high-volume manufacturing. A bespoke structural update to your packaging solution can transform your throughput.

• Faster assembly: Switching to crash-lock based designs will allow your production assembly lines to erect boxes in seconds with one simple movement, and no bottom taping is required.
• E-commerce efficiency: Integrated rapid peel-and-seal strips will make your packing faster and cleaner, while a second “return” strip will enhance customer convenience, a small detail that builds customer loyalty making returnable packaging easy.
• Automation compatibility: We use state-of-the-art precision BOBST conversion equipment. This ensures consistency, preventing costly downtime and stoppages on your automated packing lines.

Why is Reliability Critical From Your Packaging Partner?

When you update your packaging, you’ll need a partner you can trust to deliver:

• World-class reliability: Our On-Time-In-Full delivery performance averages 96–98.5%. That’s a world-class benchmark we maintain through continuous investment and planning for 30% rolling capacity headroom throughout the calendar year.
• Security of supply: As part owners of CorrBoard UK, we have a secure supply of raw materials, protecting you from market shortages.
• Stock & Serve: We can hold your packaging in our 43,000 sq ft warehouse and deliver it Just-In-Time (JIT). Not only does this offer you reduced lead times, but it also frees up your floor space and improves your cash flow.
• Resilience: Because we are part of the VPK Group, we have access to a support network throughout the UK, which means we always have a backup plan.
• Fleet Control: We manage our own fleet of vehicles and drivers, ensuring daily deliveries and full control over the last mile.

All our bespoke boxes are manufactured in-house, giving us full control over quality, lead times, and customer-specific requirements.

How Do We Make Sustainability a Technical Standard?

Sustainability is no longer optional; it is a consumer expectation and a regulatory necessity. We’ll help you switch to smart and eco-friendly corrugated packaging that regulators and customers will respect and appreciate.

• Plastic reduction: We specialise in engineering alternatives that don’t use plastic. We can use 99.9% recyclable, smart corrugated fittings instead of polystyrene inserts. 
• Carbon-neutral Board Manufacturing Process: The raw material we use comes from CorrBoard UK, where the board manufacturing process is powered by an on-site Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant, making the board manufacturing process carbon neutral.
• Certified responsibility: All of our materials are FSC®-certified, which means our raw materials are sustainably sourced.

For more on how we support your environmental goals, explore our sustainable corrugated formats.

How Does Consistent Print Quality Elevate Your Brand?

Your packaging is a “silent salesperson”, and the print quality shows what your brand stands for, whether that’s on a store shelf or at your customers’ doors.

• Consistency is key: Colour consistency is critical for brand integrity, particularly for high-end retail, e-commerce, and repeat packaging runs. We’ll ensure that your packaging always looks professional.
• Impactful design: We’ll make sure your logo stands out with everything from bold 4-colour flexographic printing to high-quality digital options for short runs.
• The vital unboxing experience moment: When you print on the inside or outside of your e-commerce boxes, it makes the unboxing a shareable experience that speaks of quality and encourages repeat business.

To see how design influences customer loyalty, read our article on how to improve your unboxing design. If you need help visualising a new look, our team provides full corrugated packaging design support.

What is the Business Case for a Packaging Refresh?

Changing your packaging design is a way to ensure the longevity of your business. It lets you keep costs down, speed up your operations, and make sure you’re following all the rules, all while enhancing customer experience.

We know how to make a solution that works whether you’re shipping delicate plants, heavy car parts, or high-end food and drink.

Ready to Start the Conversation?

Is your packaging doing the best job it can? If you are seeing a lot of damage, long packing times, or shipping costs that keep rising, it might be time to look at things from a new angle.

Contact our team today to arrange a free packaging consultation. We’ll assess your current packaging setup and recommend smarter, more sustainable bespoke corrugated solutions that will reduce costs, protect your products, and elevate your brand.