Artelo is a print-on-demand service that exclusively focuses on wall art. Their unique business model allows them to work directly with artists to provide printing, branding, packaging, and software services.
Artelo prides themselves on their ability to offer artists a wide variety of choices in product options, as well as more control over their products from start to finish.
“Any fulfillment operation has to strike a balance between standardization and product options,” said Uri Rahimi, CEO and Co-Founder of Artelo. “One of the challenges with wanting to offer lots of choices is packaging. For us, we offer our artists a range of different quantities, framing, and canvas options, and oftentimes our customers want to offer sets or gallery art, and that makes packaging a challenge.”
A wide range of product shapes and sizes requires a wide range of shipping boxes to package products in. However, stock boxes often require minimum order quantities, which can be a pain when ordering for so many different sizes. They are not only expensive, but inconvenient to store in the warehouse. Plus, with a wide variety of products moving through the packaging process, digging through stock boxes to find the appropriate size can significantly slow down operations.
Artelo needed a packaging partner as versatile as they are, to keep up with their on-demand business model. Luckily, they already had one in mind.
Artelo had a leg-up when it came to choosing a packaging partner. Their sister company, Haus and Hues, was already using Packsize and experiencing incredible results, so Artelo knew they wanted to implement the same On Demand Packaging process in their own business.
“Packsize fits in Artelo's on-demand business model by giving them the ability to make a right-sized custom box for each custom order,” said Conner Nielsen, Packsize Regional Sales Manager. “So the Artelo brand is really geared towards custom orders, custom prints, custom frames, and the Packsize machine enables them to make a right-sized custom box for each of those orders.”
Artelo implemented the Packsize EM7 into their process flow to create custom right-sized boxes for every order as they come in. When Artelo receives an order in their system, it is immediately sent to be printed, cut, and sorted into one of five finishing lines, depending on the format of the art. Meanwhile, the EM7 calculates the exact right-sized box needed to fit the order and prints it in the appropriate dimensions, in seconds. Once the art prints move through their finishing lines, they are packaged into the right-sized box, a label is attached, and they are ready to be shipped out the door.
The on-demand packaging machine from Packsize streamlines this process, making it faster, efficient, and ultimately, more affordable for Artelo than it would be with stock boxes.
“The benefits of right-sized packaging include unmatched flexibility. So when I think of a customer like Artelo, the ability to create a right-sized box is amazing because you'll save in shipping, you'll save in packaging, protective packaging, and you'll save in corrugated from shrinking down the box,” said Nielsen. “So when you're talking about custom orders, with the Packsize system, the flexibility is incredible.”
Artelo – and their customers – have experienced additional benefits as a result of implementing right-sized packaging on demand in their warehouse: More scalability and increased customer satisfaction.
Artelo’s biggest goal is to give their artists as much choice as possible, while taking on the logistical challenges of printing, packaging and shipping art to its final destination.
“Artelo empowers artists by allowing artists to focus on what they do best, which is making art,” said Jake Leventhal, CTO of Artelo. “We don't want our artists that we work with to be focusing on manufacturing, working with printers, or anything like that. We want them to have a seamless user experience where they can go in, focus on their art, upload their designs, and we'll handle the rest.”
With the help of On Demand Packaging, Artelo has been able to continue scaling and growing their business to bring in even more artists and offer even more product options.
“As we've grown, we've expanded the number of customization, size, and framing options that we make available to our customers, and we wouldn't be able to do that without an On Demand Packaging solution that allows us to facilitate the creation of packaging for each of those different options,” said Rahimi. “With Packsize, we're confident we can continue growing our product catalog because we know packaging won't be the bottleneck.”
This improved customer experience extends beyond the artists working with Artelo to ship their art, but also to the end customer receiving the final product. Right-sized packaging not only keeps shipping costs low, it also provides better protection for products during transit.
“Artelo's customers really benefit from On Demand Packaging because they get a box that is right-sized to that order, ensuring that it's going to be nice and protected,” said Nielsen. “Each box is a great fit for the order, and so during transit they'll see less likelihood of damage.”
To learn more about how you can get started with Packsize to streamline your packaging process, reach out to one of our representatives today and request an evaluation!
