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Maria Ong

Eco-friendly packaging for your e-commerce T-Shirt Business

Are you selling customized t shirts online? Make sure your product packaging is as awesome as your product! This article finds out how using ecofriendly packaging can help create a great unboxing experience for your customers.



t shirt business


Creating great first impressions


Steve Jobs once said, "Packaging can be theatre. It can create a story." This is one of the ways Steve Jobs revolutionized the customer experience whenever shoppers buy an Apple product. While others treat packaging as a minor, small aspect of retail, Steve Jobs made sure that each Apple packaging is special, unique, and well-designed. He wanted customers to feel a certain emotion upon opening Apple products to add to the Apple mystique and was successful in doing so. Customers not only kept their products, but they also kept the packaging too.


Unboxing videos have also been an ongoing trend in social media websites such as Youtube, Tiktok, and Instagram. The audience response has been so receptive that it is now a new customer touchpoint and a new means of advertising. This is why businesses must look into creating special, unique product packaging since it gives protection and gives a great lasting impression, and can benefit the brand in so many ways.


Businesses in the garments industry could greatly benefit from paying attention to packaging. If you spend time making sure your custom t shirt designs look great for your customers, imagine what joy your customers will feel when this attention to detail is extended to its packaging.


Going Eco Friendly for your business: consumers are looking for sustainable brands


A survey by the Shelton Group found that 90% of millennials will buy from an eco-conscious brand and that has social and environmental business practices. 95% of those will refer that brand to a friend. With a 600 Billion profit from this demographic alone, this is a significant number for any business. A simple way to add an eco-friendly business practice in your enterprise is simply switching to sustainable packaging. In our previous article, "What is Compostable Packaging and Why is it important?", we discussed how a recent survey by mckinley.com showed how consumers are looking for sustainable packaging. The survey reveals that consumers are willing to pay more for green, but they would also buy additional sustainably packaged products if more of them were available and they were better labeled. Now, this is something to be considered especially because switching to sustainable packaging provides essentially the same use but with the added benefit of helping the environment. More than opportunities for profits and lowering costs, being an eco friendly brand saves the environment.


Benefits of going eco friendly in your business

Becoming more commercially viable


Let’s be real. Who wouldn’t want to reduce or minimize one’s impact on the environment? But with the fast-evolving public opinion and changes in government legislation, going green is becoming a defining factor in the commercial viability of a company. It’s not just a matter of preference or is good for the brand image, it is now a requirement for some eco-conscious market cities to use sustainable alternatives. An example of this would be the State Plastic Bag Legislation where states have enacted laws that bans single-use plastic bags to reduce their impact on the environment.


According to ncl.org’s article on State Plastic Bag Legislation, “In August 2014, California became the first state to enact legislation imposing a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at large retail stores. The bill also required a 10-cent minimum charge for recycled paper bags, reusable plastic bags, and compostable bags at certain locations. The ban was set to take effect on July 1, 2015, but a referendum forced the issue onto the ballot in the November 2016 election.” Currently, there are eight states - California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont that bans single-use plastic bags.


Reduces Costs


Practicing the 3Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle could greatly reduce costs for your customized t shirt business. By implementing more sustainable business practices, you can experience greater operational efficiencies. An example of this can be applied in reducing paper costs. Below are some simple, attainable practices that could reduce paper costs as well as provide operational efficiencies:


  1. Reducing the times of printing of your thank you cards by printing double-sided

  2. Reusing scratch paper for taking messages, order information, etc. instead of buying note pads

  3. Recycling shredded paper that can be used as confetti in your packing boxes as a cushion or added design for your garments

Attracts new customers


As discussed earlier, consumers are willing to pay more for eco-conscious brands that have social and environmental business practices. By simply going eco friendly for your business, you could attract new customers who would like to make a change for themselves and would want to buy products and support eco-friendly brands.


Help save mother earth


As business owners, we influence to make a change for the betterment of our environment. If we show our customers that there are better sustainable options they could choose from, more and more people will start patronizing these sustainable alternatives that would then help the planet recover from generations of waste.


Using minliving compostable resealable bags and compostable mailers to package T-Shirt


compostable resealable bag

Choosing to go eco friendly truly lets us create a better future and environment for the next generations. One way you could start adding eco friendly practices in your business is to use compostable resealable bags and compostable mailers to package your customized t-shirts! They are 100% home-compostable and are made with plant-based materials that are gently disintegrated into the environment. Unlike plastic bags and plastic poly mailers that take 500 years or more to break down, our compostable packaging breaks down in 3-6 months and disintegrated in your backyard compost bin. It does not pollute the seas and leave microplastics that harm marine life.


Resealable bags and Compostable Mailers - What’s the difference?


minliving compostable mailers

If you’re used to using plastic bags as the first layer of protection for your garments, you can easily swap those with our compostable resealable bags. They have a classy, frosty, and translucent appearance that allows for self-customization while keeping the inside contents private. After placing your product in the minliving compostable resealable bag, you can now place it in a compostable mailer for shipping!


Our compostable resealable bags and compostable mailers are available in Size S (6” by 9”) and Size M (10” by 13”). For minliving™ products, shop here: https://www.minliving.com/shop-all.


Using minliving compostable resealable bags and compostable mailers for your t shirt business could truly create a unique unboxing experience for your customers while helping mother earth! This is the best time to make a sustainable swap and help spread awareness of this alternative to your customers. Because when we are given better options to choose from, we can make informed choices. We can now refuse to be part of the problem and instead, be part of the solution.



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