The Comfy Cup Chronicle Part 10: Packaging the “Package Protector”
"Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to balance, you must keep moving." -Albert Einstein
Before manufacturing could begin, we needed to decide how the Comfy Cup™ would be packaged. Many of the cups we purchased in the past were encased in a clear plastic that looked nice, but was difficult to open.
We decided a clear plastic bag with a nice header card would be economical and easy for boys and their busy moms to open.
In addition, we needed UPC symbols to print on the packaging. Most retailers expect their suppliers to uniquely identify their products—with barcodes (for products sold in stores) and with product identifiers (for products sold online). The first step in creating barcodes and the numbers that go into them is to obtain a GS1 Company Prefix. A GS1 Company Prefix is a unique identification number that GS1 US® issues just to your company—and it’s part of every barcode, Universal Product Code (U.P.C.) you create. It’s the internationally accepted way to uniquely identify your brand in the global supply chain. So, we got our company prefix and registered for UPC symbols at GS1. Then, we set up barcodes through GS1 US®. Finally, we added the UPC and barcode to our header cards using Adobe Photoshop software.
We had the product and the packaging. We were ready to keep moving forward.
