Custom Apparel Boxes

Yes, The Best Price Boxes makes custom apparel boxes with no minimum order, and we will beat any written quote you already have. Apparel packaging is sized from the folded garment in its heaviest fabric weight, never from the flat measurement and never from a competitor’s box. Get the depth wrong and you pay for it on every parcel forever, because carriers bill clothing on dimensions rather than on the scale.

Custom apparel box specs

Size from the fold, in the heaviest fabric you sell

The same garment folded from a light jersey and from a heavyweight fleece are different products as far as the box is concerned. A 4 ounce tee and a 7 ounce tee can differ by half an inch in folded thickness, and a knitted hoodie folds to roughly double the depth of a woven shirt.

So fold the garment as it will actually ship, in your heaviest weight, and measure that. Then check the same box against the lightest, because a box sized to the heaviest will leave the lightest rattling, and movement is what creases a garment in transit.

Send us the folded garment and we build the die line to the real thing, which costs nothing and removes the guesswork entirely.

Depth is where the margin goes

Carriers bill on whichever is greater, actual weight or dimensional weight, and dimensional weight for domestic parcels is commonly length multiplied by width multiplied by height in inches divided by 139. Clothing is light for its bulk, so almost every apparel parcel is billed on dimensions.

A 14 by 10 by 4 inch box is 560 cubic inches, about 4 billable pounds. The same footprint at 3 inches is 420 cubic inches, about 3 billable pounds. One inch of depth, one pound of billable weight, on every order you ever ship in that box.

This is why apparel brands should design the box before they standardize the fold, not after. A slightly tighter fold that removes half an inch of depth pays for itself indefinitely.

Retail and direct to consumer are different problems

For retail, the box is a shelf object. It needs a clean front face, a size and variant identification a store can read quickly, and often a window so the fabric and color are visible. A two piece lid and base or a printed folding carton is the usual answer.

For direct to consumer, the box is a courier survivor and a brand moment. A roll end tuck top corrugated mailer does both, because it protects the garment, needs no tape, and gives you a large flat printable lid. It is the right default for almost every apparel brand shipping to customers.

For premium drops and collaborations, a rigid box inside a plain corrugated shipper is the format. Rigid is kept, and a kept box carries the brand for months.

Returns, which apparel has more of than anyone

Clothing has the highest return rate of any ecommerce category, so packaging that supports a return is worth more here than anywhere else.

Specify a tear strip for opening and a second adhesive strip for resealing. The customer opens cleanly, and if the fit is wrong they reseal the same box rather than hunting for tape or a second carton. That removes support contacts, removes a box from the waste stream, and makes the return feel like part of the service rather than a punishment.

It costs very little and it is one of the few packaging decisions that improves cost, experience and waste at the same time.

Print the interior

The outside of a mailer is scuffed by the courier network and seen for a few seconds on a doorstep. The interior arrives clean, is seen at the moment of opening, and is what gets photographed. Interior print costs a fraction of the tissue, stickers and cards most brands put inside the box, and unlike those it cannot fall out or be thrown away separately.

If the budget covers one printed surface, print the inside of the lid.

Kraft or white

Kraft costs less, hides handling marks and suits basics, workwear and sustainability led brands. Ink over brown loses light tones, so a pastel palette needs a white underbase or a white liner. White liner corrugated gives accurate photographic color at a higher price. A kraft exterior with a one color logo and a fully printed white interior is the compromise that works for the most brands.

What an apparel box is not right for

It is not the cheapest way to post a single low margin basic. A poly mailer beats a box on cost and on dimensional weight, and for a staple tee that is the honest recommendation. A printed box earns its place when the unboxing is part of the purchase, when the garment must arrive uncreased, or when the parcel is a gift.

It is also not right for hanging garments and tailoring, which need a deeper garment box or a different format entirely.

Related packaging

See t-shirt boxes for tee specific sizing, mailer boxes for the ecommerce format, rigid boxes for premium drops, and ecommerce boxes for right sizing across a whole range.

Frequently asked questions

Get a quote for custom apparel boxes

Tell us the garments, the heaviest fabric weight you sell, how many pieces go in one box, and whether it ships to customers or into retail. Send us a folded sample if you can. Design, samples and shipping are free, there is no minimum order, and we will tell you honestly when a poly mailer would serve part of your range better.