A great philosopher named Kermit the Frog once said, “It’s not easy being green.” Despite that, the world seems content to try.

Over the past decade or so, everyone—from individuals to large corporate entities—have been doing their best to “Go Green,” putting the best interests of our environment and natural resources above all else. And why not? We’ve got a nice little planet here! We should take care of it!

The interesting thing about the “Green Movement,” as some call it, is that it’s completely scalable. Anything as simple as carpooling, as complex as redesigning soda bottles caps and everything in between has a positive effect on our planet, our environment and our future. Seeing as how so much can be done in such simple ways, it’s no wonder that the world at large has been quick to adapt to a new green lifestyle.

Retailers are no different. It’s now common place to build a reputation on customer satisfaction by listening to their eco-friendly sentiment and offering packaging made from recycled content, as well as reusable bags. Also, by adopting a green mentality to their stores, retailers can build a reputation for their eco-conscious ways—a nice compliment to a store’s reputation for stellar products and services.

In last week’s post, we discussed the idea of using the right packaging to carry your brand further. In this week’s post, we’re going to take that idea one step further by explaining how to use your retail packaging as a means to building your name as an environmentally conscious brand. Many major retailers are already using their packaging as a means of engaging customers into thinking greener while promoting their brand. By following that lead and taking it further to suit specific customers, retailers stand a good chance of boosting their brand–as well as their bottom line—while doing right by Mother Earth!

Here’s some steps to help get started:

Team Up!
All initiatives work better when the participants are on the same page. That said, the first thing to do is let customers know you’re with them about going green. There are a number of ways to do this, but one of the simplest is printing it on your custom-designed bags and boxes. Printing easy recycling ideas on the bottom of a box or the side of a bag is a great reminder to your customers, but also a way to proudly wave your green flag.

Encourage Creative Recycling
While some retailers encourage customers to bring back their packaging for reuse, there are more creative ways to recycle, some of which could potentially promote a retailer’s brand. For example, there’s a whole sub-culture of artists who work in the medium of recycled plastic and paper retail packaging (no, seriously! Take a look!) Hosting a contest to see who can create something new out of your recycled retail bags and boxes is an original way to encourage customers to go green while potentially spreading your brand. Imagine the attention a retailer could get if a customer made a handbag out of bags that had the store’s logo on it.

Donate to Re-users
While allowing customers to turn in and recycle their old retail bags and boxes can help the environment, a more charitable option exists: Donation. Many local charities, churches and even elementary teachers are willing to accepted recycled bags and boxes to use to their ends. For instance, many churches regularly host flea markets and bazaars, most of which use donated retail packaging for their goods. If your donated packaging already has your logo on it, that opens your branding efforts to a whole new demographic.

These are just some ideas to further your brand while pursuing a more eco-friendly agenda. As always, the secret to successful branding is creativity and flexibility. Fortunately, those traits can be used to help the planet at the same time.

What about you? What other ways do you stay “green” with your retail packaging?

There is so much to think about when opening a new apparel store. You should know the business, who your target customers are going to be, and have a good marketing strategy with which to reach them. You need to write a business plan, find a great retail location, and get together some start-up capital to launch. Then, of course, you need to find clothing suppliers and hire reliable employees to work your store. Fixtures, displays, signage, insurance, business license, a web presence: there are other essentials to think about.

With all that on your plate when opening an apparel store, it might be easy to treat packaging as an afterthought. But retail packaging is an integral part of your clothing store‘s marketing and outreach. By presenting a positive image for your store, retail packaging both attracts customers to your business and encourages return visitors and customer loyalty.

S. Walter Packaging has over 100 years experience providing high-quality retail packaging at industry competitive prices. Our team of customer specialists is ready to provide advice and coordinated packaging ideas to help you get everything you need when you open your apparel store. Here are a few essentials to get you started:

Shopping bags
The obvious first item on your retail packaging to-get list when opening an apparel store. There are many varieties of shopping bags, so take time to choose the type right for your store. Pick between paper and  plastic shopping bags, and then decide one of many materials and finishes, from simple natural kraft paper to high gloss laminated colors. The choices range in price, but choosing the right look for your store should be about style as much as economics. All these shopping bags are available in a range of sizes for different apparel types and most of them can be custom printed for brand advertising and free long-lived marketing.

Apparel boxes
Serving the dual purpose of protecting merchandise and conveying a positive brand image, apparel boxes are an essential part of the packaging program for any clothing retailer.  Made from up to 100% recycled paperboard and available in a range of colors, sizes, and styles, these boxes can also be custom printed. It’s easy to find the right style and color to match your shopping bag choice.

Tissue Paper
If you are opening an apparel store, you’ve paid attention when you purchased clothes. What do you notice lining apparel boxes and coming out the sides of elegant shopping bags? Tissue paper. Available in many solid colors and designs to match or coordinate with your bags and boxes, tissue paper is a packaging must for your apparel store. Sold in reams at wholesale prices, swalter.com is the place to go for your tissue paper needs.

Other Packaging Needs
Dress up that packaging with ribbons, bows, and gift wrap. Ribbons and bows (both available in many different colors to match your packaging style and company colors), provide an excellent finishing touch to apparel boxes or shopping bags. Wrapping paper can transform a clothing purchase into a clothing gift, and is a must for many apparel stores in the holiday period and at other times.

Other Retail Essentials
S. Walter also carries other retail essentials for opening an apparel store. We have a full range of clothes hangers, price and tagging guns, tape dispensers, spot and stain remover, garment bags, and shipping supplies. Things every clothing store needs, all at competitive wholesale prices.

Closeout Deals
If start-up costs are really tight, you might want to look through our closeout section. Here we offer inventory reduction items at incredibly cut prices. Get that apparel store up and running without breaking your budget with great packaging at low costs.

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For more on different types of retail packaging for apparel stores, check out our packaging guide. This comprehensive guide takes an informational look at various types of retail packaging — bags, boxes, and other retail essentials — looking at materials, styles, uses, and coordinating products to help you make decisions on which products are right for your business.

Rick Gettlin, long-time Chief Financial Officer of S. Walter Packaging, appeared in 2008 on Executive Leaders Radio to discuss his background, the company, and the retail packaging industry. Hear what Rick had to say at the Executive Leaders Radio site (his interview starts at about 39.15).

Executive Leaders Radio hosts Herb Cohen and Dean Schwartz conduct “elite interviews” of prominent business leaders focusing on “what makes people tick.” In the course of the ten to twenty-five minute on-air informal interviews guests may be asked about their background, education, influences, mentors, and early career experiences, asked about their business, what they do and who they serve. They may be asked about opportunities ahead, challenges they have faced or their senior management team. Interests outside of work, personal turning points and family sacrifices capture the unique human aspect behind these prominent leaders.

All of these questions are designed to help the audience learn “what it takes to succeed.” Hear Rick share the S. Walter success story!

Here at S. Walter Packaging, we’re firm believers in the idea that “packaging is art.” It is one of our company slogan, and much more than that, it’s a guiding principle that runs through our design department and into our sales force. Thoughtfully designed packaging can transform a brand and improve a store’s image.

We are not alone in this point of view. There is a healthy community of bloggers dedicated to the art behind packaging. While most pay scant attention to the intricacies of retail packaging — the all-important last line of packaging, what products are carried in as they leave a store —they clearly demonstrate that artistic packaging is not a luxury for top companies, it’s a business essential. Here are a few of our favorite packaging and branding blogs, and a little bit about them.

The Dieline (thedieline.com)

Around since 2007, The Dieline “is dedicated to the progress of the package design industry and its practitioners, students and enthusiasts. Its purpose is to define and promote the world’s best packaging design, and provide a place where the package design community can review, critique and stay informed of the latest industry trends and design projects being created in the field.”

Updated regularly, The Dieline features the finest in branded packaging, with images and explanatory text. Packaging designers can submit their creations for consideration on the blog, and the organization now sponsors The Dieline Awards, “a worldwide package design competition devoted exclusively to the art of brand packaging,” as well an annual The Dieline Package Design Conference & Expo. Also check out their book, Box Bottle Bag: The World’s Best Package Designs from TheDieline.com.

box vox (boxvox.net)

With everything from songs about packaging to musings about branded packaging in squalid scenes of moral turpitude, box vox is the place for talk about the socio-cultural aspects of packaging design and branding. Operating under the slogan “Packaging as Content,” boxvox.net has been online since 2007.

Lovely Package (lovelypackage.com)

High on pictures, low on text, lovely package features just that: “lovely packages.” The sleek site comes from a firm design-art standpoint, claiming to be “curating the very best packaging design.” Indeed, the blog is an art gallery for admirers of packaging as art.

Packaging of the World (packagingoftheworld.com)

With a million visits every two months, Packaging of the World is one of the premier sites for “the most interesting and creative packaging work worldwide.” Started in early 2008, it has grown from a personal blog to a gallery for users hungry for design inspiration. Arranged by different industries, Packaging of the World features sections on beverage packaging, apparel packaging, sports packaging, and over a dozen other categories.

Here at S. Walter Packaging we are firm believers in the importance of retail packaging for stores and businesses. There are multiple advantages to a coordinated in-store packaging program. Attractively branded bags connect customers to the store and thus engender customer loyalty. (See our previous blog post for more on this.)

Obviously, for in-store purchases, shopping bags have a distinctly utilitarian purpose: customers use their comfortably handled bag to carry merchandise from the shop. But once out of the store, shopping bags have an added impact. Spotted on the street, they provide free advertising for the store. When reused for other purposes, branded shopping bags remind customers of their purchases and forge a connection between shopper and shop.

This is relevant to a growing trend that has come to our attention recently: including a branded shopping bag in a shipment for an online purchase. With more and more customers doing their shopping online, and a large number still using catalogs to make purchase, it makes sense to try and increase brand loyalty with shipped as well as in-store sales.

At first glance, including a shopping bag with a shipment of clothes or other merchandise may seem counter-intuitive. After all, the customer is receiving the shipment in his or her mailbox, not carrying the products out of a store. But what if the shipment is to be used as a gift? A gift bag makes a ready-made gift package. And a shopping bag in a mailbox has all the add-on value of one carried from a store: customers are likely to reuse it, providing advertising and increasing customer loyalty.

Good retail packaging is not just for stores these days!

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S. Walter Packaging offers a full selection of paper and plastic shopping bags in a range of sizes, styles, and colors. Browse our online catalog or contact a customer representative to learn how packaging can carry your brand further!

On April 29, 2011,Prince William, who is second in line to the British throne and to the head of state of 16 other nations, will marry his long-time girlfriend, Miss Catherine Middleton, at Westminster Abbey in London. The Royal Wedding ceremony will be attended by nearly two thousand people, including dignitaries and celebrities from throughout the United Kingdom, British Commonwealth, and across the globe. Billions more will watch the proceedings and accompanying pomp and circumstance from their homes, the streets of London, or from Royal Wedding parties. Even in the United States, Kate and William’s wedding has attracted hours of television coverage and many pages in magazines.

Truly, the wedding will be one other couples can only dream about. William’s grandmother is one of the richest women in the world, Kate’s family owns a multi-million dollar mail-order business, and the occasion is a semi-state affair. But wedding luxury doesn’t have to be a royal-only affair. S. Walter Packaging offers a number of products that will spruce up your own wedding or wedding-serving business.

Our impressive online catalog of retail packaging includes a number of attractive wedding gift wraps. With subdued colors and tasteful patterns, these gift wrap for weddings are ideal for weddings and bridal showers. This blogger’s favorite is the exquisite Exquisitely Entwined Wedding Gift Wrap, a lovely patterned wedding wrapping paper (pictured left). They can be used by individuals for gift wrapping purposes, or by retailers to dress up wedding-related sales.

There won’t be much DIY about the royal wedding, but wedding insiders are seeing a growing trend of self-planned and implemented weddings. “Brides love to coordinate all aspects of their wedding day,” says Jon Gangwer, owner of Philadelphia wedding video company Wellspun Wedding Films. “So making your own flower arrangements, invites, or party favors is a way of controlling how your wedding looks as well as a way to cut costs.” A recent issue of Martha Stewart Weddings: The Reception Issue which explored DIY opportunities picked out jewelry boxes from S. Walter as a useful component for creating wedding favor boxes. Combined with our attractive wedding gift wrap, these jewelry boxes make S. Walter a useful source for brides looking for decorations and ideas fit for a Royal Wedding but with a fraction of the cost.

Here’s wishing Will and Kate and all new brides and grooms the best of luck!

Packaging is Art at S. Walter!

We’ve redesigned our LookBook gallery. The all new gallery is packed with the latest and greatest custom packaging from S. Walter. This impressive selection of photographs show the finest in wholesale packaging programs, arranged by the many markets we serve: retail packaging, promotional packaging, packaging for food service, eco-friendly packaging, packaging for hotels and resorts, spa & beauty packaging, packaging for museums and their gift stores, and jewelry packaging.

Check out these samples from our exciting catalog and click on any picture to be taken to the full S. Walter LookBook and find out what packaging can do for your brand!

Retail Packaging example from the S. Walter LookBook

Food Packaging example from the S. Walter LookBook

Jewelry Packaging example from the S. Walter LookBook

Plastic bags are now fairly ubiquitous, used in retail packaging across the globe. But the inventions that lead to them being widely used are all relatively recent. Plastic is made up of polymers — chain of organic molecules — molded into useful shapes. Here is a brief time line of the history of plastic and plastic bags inventions and introductions.

1839 – Process for making usable natural rubber (something of a natural plastic) discovered by Charles Goodyear; Polystyrene discovered by accident by Eduard Simon in Germany, he does not utilize this discovery.

1855 – First marketed human-made plastic invented by Alexander Parkes. Called Parkesine by its creator and now known as celluloid, first found commercial use as billiard balls (replacing ivory), before becoming used in photography.

1872 – PVC, or vinyl, discovered by Eugen Baumann, it was not patented and did not gain a commercial application until the 1920s.

1898 – Polyethylene, the polymer family used in most plastic bags, first synthesized by the German chemist Hans von Pechmann.

1908 - Cellophane film invented by Jacques E Brandenberger. Around the same time, Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland creates Bakelite, a well-constructed universally used material now considered the first “true plastic.”

1933 – Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett create low-density polyethene (LDPE), the material used in plastic bags. Their experiment is replicated three years later and the material soon finds much commercial use due to wartime rubber shortages.

1957 – Plastic bags begin to gain commercial use as sandwich bags.

1965 – Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin develops a process to make easy-to-construct plastic bags out of a plastic tube. The “t-shirt bag” quickly becomes adopted by many retailers.

1974 – Retail giants Sears and J.C. Penny switch to plastic shopping bags.

1977 – The Celloplast company loses its monopoly on the production of plastic shopping bags. When the monopoly expires, new and cheaper production processes make plastic bags even more common. By the early 1980s most grocery stores offer “paper or plastic” bag options.

1990 – Consumer plastic bag recycling begins through a supermarket collection-site network. (Learn about S. Walter Packaging’s own bag recycling program here.)

2011 – Over 80% of all bags used are plastic bags.

The flowers of spring are almost here, and though “rough winds do shake the darling buds of May and summer’s lease has too short a date,”* you can make a store or occasion beautiful any time of year with these simple to make tissue paper flowers.

What you’ll need (for each flower):
Six or more pieces of colored tissue paper (or three or more if cut into halves)
Scissors
String or a pipe cleaner
Stick or bamboo pole (for stem)
Tape

Step one: Cut the tissue paper into half or quarters (smaller pieces make smaller flowers).

Step two: Stack at least six piece of tissue paper (can be different colors for a multi-colored flower) on top of one another.

Step three: Fold the paper accordion style along the length of the paper.

Step four: Tie a piece of string or pipe cleaner around the center of the folded stack.

Step five: Shape the ends of the flower petals by curving or otherwise cutting the ends of the folded tissue paper.

Step six: Open the flower by gently pulling up one half sheet of tissue paper at a time from the folded stack until you have a complete flower.

Step seven: Attach string or pipe cleaner with tape to a stick to have a stem for the flower.

Step eight: Make more flowers!!!

S. Walter Packaging sells over 100 varieties of tissue paper, all at hard-to-beat wholesale prices. This great discount is available to retailers, promoters, brides, party planners, parents, and teachers alike. Get wholesale tissue paper today and start the decorations. Or check out our closeout selection of  inexpensive tissue paper for even better deals.

*Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
—William Shakespeare

No matter what your gift this Valentine’s Day and no matter what your store is selling this February, red ribbon and other classic Valentine’s Day packaging will add a touch a romance.

The classic Valentine’s gift is of course a bunch of flowers. Florists do a bulk of their sales for the year in the days preceding February 14 and Mother’s Day. The bright colors, perfumed scents, and transient beauty of a flower bouquet seems perfectly suited for an expression of romantic sentiment, and is an ideal mood enhancer for a mid-winter holiday. Just a solitary red rose speaks volumes. Flower stores are even seeing a growing trend of women buying flower displays for their male partner.

It’s easy to add to the romance of a gift of flowers and improve Valentine’s flower sales by dressing up the stems with a simple red ribbon or bow. Simply tie the red ribbon around the stems, exterior packaging, or flower vase and you have an instant romantic gift.

After flowers, the most popular Valentine’s Day gift is probably a box of chocolates. There’s nothing like a selection of sweet confectionery to thank the sweetheart in your life. Independent retailers can take a slice of the Valentine’s Day candy pie with the simple use of value-adding packaging. Use a gusseted cello bag with a simple twist tie, or add a colorful ribbon to your own candy box. Transform that box of candy into a gift a candy with a stylish butterfly pull bow.

A glance around the internet show some other interesting ways people are using packaging to spruce up their Valentine’s. This article shows how easy it is to make your own Ribbon Napkin Rings for Valentine’s Day using a piece of simple thin ribbon. We welcome other ideas!

S. Walter Packaging carries a full range of Valentine’s Day packaging: bags, bows, boxes, tissue paper, and other retail essentials. You’ll just love our Valentine’s Collection! We also have an impressive selection of ribbons and bows to finish any gift purchases, and our customer representatives are standing by to help you plan your retail packaging, whatever the occasion, whatever your business need. Call 1-800-523-8888 or visit swalter.com for more information.