Honeycomb paper for corporate gifting companies: packing hundreds of gifts on time

Corporate gifting looks like a creative business. In the last three weeks before a festival, it is a factory.

Five hundred identical boxes for one client, three hundred mixed hampers for another, all promised for the same week, all going to different addresses. And every box has to arrive looking as good as the sample the client approved.

The packing material is a small part of the cost and a big part of the risk.

Here is the short answer. For corporate gifting at scale, write one packing sheet per gift set, set up a kitting line where each person does one step, use honeycomb paper in a width that fits the items, order all coloured paper for a campaign from one lot, and buy the paper before the season rush, not during it. Test one packed gift by courier before you pack the rest.

We make honeycomb paper in Jaipur in natural kraft, white, black, blue, green, red and yellow. Here is how I would use it if I ran a gifting business.

Why is corporate gifting packing different?

Three things set it apart from normal ecommerce.

1. Volume comes in spikes. Diwali in India, year-end and the holiday season elsewhere. For many gifting companies, a large part of the year's packing happens in a few weeks.
2. The client approves a look. The 500th box must match the sample, so improvised packing is not allowed.
3. One order goes to many addresses. A single damaged box often reaches the client's own customer or employee, and the complaint lands on the client's desk.

So the packing has to be planned like a production run. How the hamper looks when opened is a separate topic, covered in our guide to honeycomb paper for gift hampers. This article is about getting hundreds of them out of the door.

I come from manufacturing, and I mean that literally. We check every honeycomb lot in Jaipur for GSM, roll weight, moisture and cut quality before it is packed. A gifting company in peak season needs the same habit of checking.

One packing sheet per gift set

Before packing starts, make a one-page sheet for each gift set. Keep it next to the line.

1. A photo of the finished, opened box, i.e. what the receiver should see.
2. Every item in the set, in packing order.
3. Wrap for each item: roll width or sheet size, colour and number of turns.
4. Fill: what goes in the gaps, and how much.
5. The outer shipping box, and how the gift box sits inside it.

This sheet does two jobs.

It keeps the 500th box like the first. And it gives you a real number for paper per gift, which you need for buying.

How do you set up a kitting line?

Break the packing into steps and give each step to one person or one station. I would do this even with a small team, because a person learns one step much faster than the whole job.

A typical line for a hamper might run like this:

The fragile-item station is where honeycomb paper does most of its work. Put a table-top dispenser there, with the roll width chosen for the main item. Our guide to honeycomb paper dispensers compares the types.

Sheets or rolls for gift packing?

Use rolls on a dispenser for long runs of the same gift. Use pre-cut sheets for short runs and for temporary helpers.

We make pre-cut sheets of 390 x 500 mm, roughly 50 cm off a roll each. They suit a seasonal worker on day one, because there is no tearing to size and no dispenser to learn. For a run of hundreds of identical boxes, a roll on a dispenser is faster and wastes less.

Using both works well. Rolls on the main line, a stack of sheets on the side table for odd items and repacks.

How do you match the client's brand colour?

Pick the colour with the client using a wrapped sample, not a colour chart. Paper colour looks different under shop lights, in daylight and in a photo.

Then order all the coloured paper for that campaign in one go. Dyed paper can vary slightly in shade from one production lot to the next. Two shades of red in the same delivery of 500 gifts is the kind of thing a client notices.

A few practical notes:

1. Black and white look premium with most brands, and they are safe choices when a brand colour is hard to match.
2. Natural kraft suits clients who talk about sustainability. It also hides small marks better than white.
3. White shows dust and fingerprints. Keep white rolls wrapped until they go on the dispenser.

For a logo, pair the coloured wrap with a branded sticker, printed tissue or a printed gift box. The wrap carries the colour and the box carries the name.

Worked example: a Diwali order of 400 hampers

Say a gifting company has an order for 400 hampers. Each holds one glass jar of sweets, two ceramic cups and a box of dry fruit, and they go to 400 addresses across India. These numbers are only for the example.

1. They make a packing sheet with a photo and wrap rules: jar in two turns of red honeycomb, each cup in two turns, dry fruit box unwrapped, honeycomb as fill.
2. They pack ten hampers, weigh the roll before and after, and work out paper per hamper.
3. They multiply by 400, add a margin for repacks and spoilage, and order all the red paper at once.
4. They send two packed hampers by courier to a colleague in another city, and open them on a video call.
5. Only then do they pack the other 398.

The two test hampers cost almost nothing.

They are the cheapest insurance in the whole order.

When should you order paper for the season?

Early. As soon as the season is in sight, before the client orders are all confirmed.

Demand for packaging usually rises before the big festivals, and transport gets slower at the same time. Ask your supplier early whether your colour is in stock or made to order. With us, brown, white and black are regular stock, red, blue, yellow and green are usually in stock, and a client's own brand colour is made to order with a minimum order of 8 pallets of one colour in one width, which takes longer. I would rather you order a little early and store it properly than order late and wait.

Store it dry. Paper that sits in a damp godown through the end of the monsoon comes out weaker, and our note on storage and humidity explains why.

Where honeycomb paper is not the right answer

I will be honest, even though we sell it. Honeycomb paper is a protective wrap with a nice look. It is not decorative tissue, and it will not make a cheap box look luxurious on its own. For very delicate surfaces, such as high-gloss lacquer or soft leather, add a tissue layer under the honeycomb so the cut edges do not mark the surface.

If your team is new to honeycomb paper, our explainer on how honeycomb paper protects a product is a good ten-minute read before the season starts. To plan paper per gift properly, use the method in our guide on honeycomb paper per order.

If you have a season coming up, send us your main gift sets, the colours your clients like and rough volumes through our contact page. We will send samples in those colours so you can wrap a test hamper before you commit. Be strict with that test hamper. I would be.