Amanda Teo

In what ways does packaging contribute to the brand experience? In other words, why does getting packaging right matter?

The unboxing experience has become such a pivotal part of the customer experience, especially for e-commerce vendors who operate mostly online, packaging can be the experience that makes your brand memorable and Instagrammable. This is a great marketing tool that makes your brand memorable, and helps with brand awareness and loyalty. Custom packaging is a really great way to express your brand’s personality, show off your brand colours and design!

What questions should companies ask when thinking about packaging for the first time?

Always start with asking yourself how you want your product or offering to be unboxed and experienced. What is the feeling you want to create for your customers when they see your package for the first time? What do you want it to look like when they open it, and what feeling do you want them to have – surprise, delight, laughter? What does that ‘wow’ moment look like for your brand?

Then ask yourself, what packaging elements do you need to achieve that ‘wow’ moment? If you ship in boxes and want to get your brand on the outside, a custom Stamp, Sticker, or custom Tape will help get your branding on there.

Custom Tissue and Stickers are always a great starting point for every business. It adds a touch of luxury to your packaging, allows you to show off some brand colours or designs, and makes for an instantly memorable unboxing. It’s also perfect for gift-wrapping options you might want to offer as part of your checkout process.

If your products have specific care/use instructions, or you just want to include a nice memento or note of thanks for your customers? Then Custom Cards would be something you can include.

We encourage you to look at it one layer at a time, and of course look at how you can keep it sustainable at each layer – minimising waste or excess packaging where possible.

Why was it important for noissue to make branded, sustainable packaging available to small businesses and not just big corps?

We were a small business ourselves looking for branded packaging for a previous venture our co-founders Josh and Augie ran. They were in the sustainable eyewear business, and were looking for compostable packaging options that was customisable and available in the small order quantities they needed. They found it was incredibly hard to get anything custom in low minimum order quantities, and in sustainable materials, and when stockists were just as interested in the packaging as they eyewear, they decided to help other small businesses have access to custom, sustainable packaging.

Sustainability, customisation, and small business have always been a part of noissue’s identity, and we love serving the small business community.

What’s some of the best copy you’ve seen on pack?

Our new foodsafe packaging has a dispenser box that says “Take a pizza me” where you need to tear away. We love a good pun, so it was great to be able to incorporate a food one for our new custom foodsafe paper!

How does your key brand value of sustainability translate to your internal culture?

We look at sustainability not just for the environment, but also within our teams. Sustainability speaks to how robust a team can be.

We want to build a business that will be around for many years to come, so it’s important our internal culture reflects that mission. We see sustainability as a key pillar to both our product offering and to our business operations. Since noissue began, we’ve focused on growing our team sustainably by bringing on the incredible talent who can help grow with the business. We work across many different time zones and continents and we’re all incredibly respectful of other team member’s working hours to ensure they have enough time left in their day to relax and recharge.

What advice would you give to small businesses looking to be more sustainable?

Start small and remember every little thing counts. Even if it’s as small as swapping our plastic stickers for earth-friendlier alternatives, or removing a layer of unnecessary packaging – you’re making a difference.

You’ve built a brand and community around packaging for other brands. How do you make space for different stories, from businesses to freelance designers?

We love amplifying the stories of the small businesses we serve. From creatives to makers, brands and businesses, they’re all doing interesting work!

We use our @noissueco instagram to give a voice to all of our different customer groups – from those just starting out to designers who have been creating for many years. We share and shout out all of the packaging that our customers create there. We are also always looking to add value to our customer groups and we love hearing the different stories each one provides us. This year we created an instagram specifically for our creative community (@noissuecreatives) for them to learn and grow from one another. This has been really well received from our creative community. Finally, we have our Eco-Alliance program which allows our customers to plant a tree with every order. We then invite these brands, makers, and businesses from our Eco-Alliance program to submit a customer story that we feature on our blog.