Field note
Which part of your order has no minimum?
The product has no minimum; the printing does. We ship a standard product one order at a time, but a label, card or bag with your logo on it comes from a printer that sets its own run.
On Thursday 5 November, an activewear seller hit that line. The day before, we had quoted custom hang tags, cards and woven labels at a run of 500 each, and sealed bags at 100. The seller had heard "no minimum" at the start and pushed back. Both statements were true, about two different things.
How do you pay for a print run when orders come one by one?
You pay for the run once, and it goes into each order as the orders arrive. The seller asked exactly that: pay first for the bulk, then we use it order by order. We hold your printed materials at the warehouse and apply them while your orders keep flowing. Reorder before the run is used up, because a reprint takes time again.
You do not have to start there. We suggested handwritten thank-you cards on a plain stock card, which carry no print minimum, and the seller replied that this was closer to the original plan. Ask for that option before you pay for artwork.
Why did the sticker price change?
Because a new shape or a new method is a new print job. A second seller asked us on Wednesday to keep the same sticker price after changing the shape and wording. The new sticker needed a different production method and size, so the figure came back several times higher, for the product alone.
Neither figure included shipping. Ask whether a branding quote covers shipping to the warehouse, every time.
A third seller asked the narrower question: only the box and bag, no logo on the product. That is a fair way to split the job, because each piece gets its own minimum and price.
Get one list before you brand anything
Ask for one line per branded item: the minimum, the price for that run, the production time and the file the printer needs. In the quotes we saw, production took three to four working days for stickers and about a week for tags, cards and labels, so add that to your launch date. The packaging ladder shows which rung to pay for first, and the FAQ on branded packaging minimums sets out what we confirm before production.