Millions of e-commerce cartons are shipped around the world every day. In some cases, consumers may see distinct images on the inside and outside of the cartons, and the packaging they receive may be different from that of other consumers in different parts of the same country for the same product.
The demand for this differentiation possibility and other unique features is growing rapidly, prompting more packaging companies using substrates such as fiber, plastic and glass to invest in digital inkjet printing technology to cost-effectively meet customers’ changing needs. While converters are the primary target customers of OEMs, the impact of digital printing technology has extended throughout the supply chain, including brands, retailers and other parties who are beginning to demand digitally printed packaging.
Although digital printing has been used in the labeling field for nearly 30 years, Jean Lloyd, global principal analyst at Keypoint Intelligence, pointed out that “in all other packaging areas, digital printing is still very new.” She continued: “Everyone wants to get into packaging now because it is essential and people see the opportunities that digital inkjet printing brings.” The trend towards direct media printing, especially for reasons such as reducing waste, is becoming more and more popular.
Image
Learning Curve
Digital printing is still in its infancy in the packaging space, but converters are gradually realizing new benefits and applications as manufacturers continue to improve equipment and expand capabilities. This process takes time and patience.
Rob Daniels, digital business manager at Fortis Solutions Group, said: “In 12 to 18 months, you will start to master what you are doing. It may take 18 to 24 months before you can really start to improve and perfect your workflow. Generally, it takes six months to a year before you start to gain benefits with digital technology.”
He pointed out that in traditional analog label printing, there are always issues with printing plates, tooling and preparation costs. Although the upfront cost of digital equipment was an obstacle at first, he said: “We gradually started to gain the trust of customers and get orders from large companies who do prototyping and R&D. Like turning on a light switch, the economic benefits have prompted us to upgrade to new digital models every 18 months.”
Image
Robert Seay, vice president of digital printing strategy and growth at Georgia-Pacific, shared a similar experience. Before launching its dedicated digital printing service, Hummingbird, the company experimented with the technology for many years. “Customers are finding value in it—improved supply chain efficiency, reduced inventory, faster turnaround times, less scrap.”
During and after the pandemic, many early adopters of digital printing found themselves uniquely positioned to manage disrupted demand, supply chain volatility, and unpredictable inventory. “The impact of the pandemic on the packaging industry has been so huge, it’s just crazy,” Daniels said. But the ability of digital systems to print limited quantities on demand—compared to the minimum quantities typically required by analog systems—has enabled converters using the technology to better manage production and costs.
“Throughout the pandemic, no one could have predicted how much they were going to need,” Seay added. “Digital was perfect for that… We can run short runs, ship quickly, and replenish inventory as needed.”
One of the most fundamental advantages of digital printing over traditional plate-based printing systems is the clarity and overall quality of the print job. “The print quality is outstanding,” said William Barlow, market development manager at Printpack, which uses digital printing for flexible plastic packaging. “Digital printing allows for finer, more detailed graphics than flexo or even gravure.”
Another benefit for converters is that digital systems eliminate the upfront process of repeat orders, saving time that directly impacts the bottom line. “We enter the order into the ERP system, it automatically creates the file, bypasses prepress, gets the required files, and starts queuing on the digital press,” says Smith Lankford, general manager of packaging at Quad’s Printing and Marketing Solutions division. “This essentially eliminates the front-end process of preparing the file manufacturing that we go through in traditional offset or flexo.”
Building Brand Relationships
The integration of digital printing technology provides converters with a powerful ability to meet the changing needs of their customers. “In every market segment like packaging, it’s all about keeping the brand happy and understanding what the brand wants and how the market is changing,” emphasizes Keypoint’s Lloyd.
Not only is the technology speeding up converters’ operations, it’s also helping brands get products to market faster. “We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from a speed-to-market standpoint or from a cost and material usage minimization standpoint,” says Printpack’s Barlow.
While packaging companies have recognized the benefits, most customers have not yet fully adapted to the technology to make specific requests. However, that is changing. Daniels points out that some large brands are beginning to proactively seek digital solutions to improve quality.
Ken Hanulek, vice president of global marketing at equipment and services provider EFI, says his team is working directly with brands to help them understand the value of digital printing on packaging.
Still, converters are largely still making printing decisions, and most have not yet aggressively ramped up their digital capabilities, notes Jeff Wettsten, vice president of packaging at Keypoint Intelligence.
Quad’s Lankford confirms this, explaining, “We have very few customers who require their products to be printed digitally. They are more concerned with the quality of the product and the consistency of the brand across all platforms. As a result, we view digital printing more as a tool to meet customer needs in the most cost-effective way.”
“Digital allows customers more creativity than traditional printing,” adds Melianthus Leeman, global marketing director for wine and spirits at O-I Glass. She describes how O-I used digital inkjet equipment to help Da Vinci Winery launch its Monnalisa line with graffiti decorations on its bottles.
“They also wanted a tactile effect when the graffiti was layered. Digital printing was the best choice because we can layer inks and match the colors in the original artwork,” she said. “Compared to screen printing, digital printing is not limited by the number of colors and can use any number of colors.”
The on-demand nature of digital technology makes it cost-effective for prototyping and design testing, which is superior to analog technology. Pedro Goncalves, vice president of marketing for Tetra Pak USA and Canada, said: “Brands can more effectively A/B test small batch orders of different packaging designs to find out what works best for different markets, thereby minimizing waste.”
OEMs and converters both believe that digital inkjet printing is currently more suitable for short runs, mainly due to cost and efficiency considerations. “Small batches have always been seen as an advantage of digital presses, rather than a limitation,” Goncalves said.
“Focusing on small batches allows small and medium-sized enterprises to compete and compete with large companies, which allows them to have professional-looking entry-level packaging at an affordable price,” said Daniels of Fortis. This shows that digital printing technology is bringing revolutionary changes to the packaging industry.
Promoting the purchase of goods
Although e-commerce is a key application area for digital printing technology, its practicality goes far beyond that. The technology also improves the quality of retail packaging in physical stores, making it stand out in a fierce market competition.
An innovative feature launched by O-I Glass can print transparent ink on the bottle in 3D form, creating a raised effect similar to embossing. Leeman said that this method makes standard stock bottles look as if they are custom designs, providing a significant differentiation advantage for brands. “It’s a revolutionary advancement.”
Compared with traditional offset or flexographic printing, this technology provides customers with greater design flexibility and enables manufacturers to produce multiple packaging versions for the same product. Goncalves pointed out that this variety makes the display on the shelf more attractive, and even conveys a unified brand message when different designs are placed side by side. He demonstrated this by citing the cooperation between Tetra Pak and Flow Beverage to print fiber cartons in different colors and designs for the same beverage product.
Image
Printing on demand also makes inventory adjustments for seasonal products more rapid and flexible. “Brands or retailers often find additional demand during the initial printing of seasonal products. Inventory is expensive. Just-in-time production not only avoids outdated inventory but also reduces capital costs,” Georgia-Pacific’s Seay noted.
Manufacturers also use versioning technology to create unique packaging designs for products in different regions, such as branded beverage cans with the logos of local home sports teams. Customization and personalization are hot trends right now. “It’s no longer popular for a bottle of wine to have the same look in different regions,” Liman said. “Now consumers are more interested in regional products.”
Interacting with consumers
In this day and age, brands are pursuing personalization more than ever to connect with consumers, cultivate loyalty and influence their future purchase decisions. In recent years, with the popularity of “unboxing” videos on social media, in which people share their first impressions of products and packaging when opening e-commerce cartons, this experience has come into the spotlight.
Hanulek emphasized that unboxing is the first interaction a consumer has with a brand or the contents of a package. “Digital inkjet printing should support this experience by delivering information and beautiful print to create a deeper, more nuanced connection with consumers,” he said.
Fortis’ Daniels gave an example of how personalization can affect consumer perception. He mentioned that some gas station or convenience store sandwiches, although produced and distributed externally by large companies, are digitally printed with the convenience store’s logo. “This makes it feel like the gas station has its own localized, independent range of sandwiches, which is important as more and more people tend to buy local products rather than bulk imported goods,” he explained.
Hanulek also pointed to carton packaging advertising as a huge potential growth area for digital printing. Take Amazon, for example, they temporarily replaced the standard brown carton in 2019 and used limited edition cartons printed with Taylor Swift’s new album Lover advertisement for shipment. This randomization technique is now considered less complex and can reach the target population more precisely. Hanulek received one of the special cartons, but said, “I couldn’t even name three songs on the album, so I think they were wrong about my demographics.”
Image
Digital inkjet printing technology not only opens up new possibilities for decorating the inside of cartons, whether it’s simply printing instructions or adding decorative features. With package theft on the rise, brands and shippers are exploring the use of digital printing on the inside of cartons as a way to improve e-commerce security. Hanulek noted that while it takes coordination with the press environment to achieve the integration of printing inside and outside the carton, the effort is worth it. “There is software that can assist with this task, with just a slight adjustment of the ink technology and the coding technology,” he said.
Brands are increasingly adopting digitally printed codes and markings on packaging. The high-definition image and stability of digital inkjet printing ensure that scanning equipment can accurately read the printed code. In contrast, analog printing methods are more likely to produce blurry images, which may make the code unreadable.
Brands are able to integrate augmented reality technology into packaging designs by allowing consumers to scan the code on the package. O-I has introduced this feature on its digitally printed wine bottles. “When consumers scan the artwork with their phones, it comes to life and provides an online experience,” Leeman said.
Leaman also noted that these features, along with trendy and vibrant graphic designs, are particularly popular with younger generations who are data-driven and personalised. Digital printing, therefore, helps brands reach untapped potential customer bases. In addition, brands are also looking to provide consumers with more product information through supply chain tracking and tracing capabilities. “With the explosion of data, the need for printed inline information is also rising, which requires higher print quality,” said Philip Le Sage, vice president and general manager of HP’s Specialty Printing and Technology Solutions business. He also mentioned that it is a major change from a basic code enforced by the government to a brand-driven data exchange method.
As traceability technology develops and provides more granular data, consumers are able to understand the proportion of recycled materials in a product or the source of the materials. Le Sage pointed out that brands are able to obtain information about how many codes consumers scan and how they interact with them, which is undoubtedly a two-way information sharing activity. He optimistically predicted: “As more and more data is captured, how this technology will really develop. There are not many technologies that can do this at present.”