Fillmore Container Company: 6 Packaging Order Mistakes I Made So You Can Skip Them

Eight years ago, I treated my first packaging order like a takeout order: choose a product, click, wait. Seven reorders later, I realized packaging and printing have their own learning curve. These are the questions I wish someone had made me answer before that first order.

I handle procurement for a product-based business. In the last eight years, I've placed more than 200 orders for packaging, printing, and promotional items—many of them through Fillmore Container. I've also made 17 documented mistakes totaling roughly $12,000 in wasted budget. Some of the numbers below are from memory, but the total is close enough to hurt.

What does Fillmore Container Company actually sell?

The name makes it sound like they only sell containers. Fillmore Container Company (often shortened to Fillmore Container) is a packaging, printing, and promotional products supplier. Under packaging, they carry corrugated boxes, bubble wrap, foam board, barricade caution tape, tissue paper, and gift basket supplies. Under printing: posters, flyers, brochures, business cards, letterhead, and envelopes. Then there's the promo side, which I didn't explore until year three: custom water bottles, tote bags, and garment bags.

That breadth matters because I spent two years splitting orders between vendors to save money. I bought boxes from one supplier, print from another, and promo items from a third. Unit prices were lower in some cases, but split shipments and freight minimums quietly ate the savings. I once saved $34 in unit price on a box order and paid $52 in extra freight to get it delivered. A single supplier isn't always cheaper per line item, but it frequently wins on total cost once you count shipping, admin time, and proof coordination.

Is barricade caution tape just barricade caution tape?

No, and I paid to learn that. In 2019, I ordered the cheapest barricade caution tape I could find online. It looked identical to the more expensive products in the photos. It was not identical.

The roll tore when we tied it to fence posts. The print faded noticeably after about ten days in direct sun. We were marking off a work area near a loading dock, and the crew re-taped the perimeter three times in one week.

What most people don't realize is that value-priced barricade tape is usually thinner—often around 1 mil—and the ink sits on the surface instead of bonding into the plastic. For a wet-floor warning inside a building, that's fine. For outdoor or multi-day use, pay the difference for 2 mil tape. The extra $7 per roll is nothing compared with paying someone to tape the same area again and again.

The mistake was comparing price per roll. I should have compared cost per week of reliable performance.

How do I order a custom curved water bottle without regretting it?

Ask for the safe print area before you approve anything. That lesson cost me roughly $3,400 on an order of 1,200 custom curved water bottles in 2024.

The proof looked correct on a flat screen. I approved it, then immediately wondered if the logo placement would survive the curve. It did not. The logo sat low enough that the curve made the last letters look slightly pressed together. No one on my team caught it until the cartons arrived.

Two things I do now:

• I request a physical pre-production sample on any order over 100 units. It costs little and prevents expensive surprises.
• I ask the supplier to mark the safe print area on the proof.

Color is the other trap. If your brand color is defined by a hex code from your website, it will not automatically translate to print. Use a Pantone number when you request a quote. Pantone's Color Matching System guidance sets a color tolerance of roughly Delta E below 2 for brand-critical colors, and your supplier should be able to tell you how close the printed result will be. I used to say, 'the blue from our website.' I don't do that anymore.

How to put tissue paper in a gift basket so it looks intentional, not flat?

Use more tissue than feels reasonable. Four to six sheets, not two. That is the whole trick, and it took me way too long to learn it.

My low point came when a client sent a photo of a gift basket we had prepared next to one from another company. Our basket had two flat sheets of tissue laid on top, which looked like an afterthought. Actually, that is exactly what it was.

Here is the technique I use now:

1. Stack four to six sheets of tissue, rotating each sheet by about 30 to 45 degrees so the corners fan out.
2. Pinch the stack in the center and lift it. The tissue will bloom around your hand.
3. Set the pinched center into the bottom of the basket and let the layers unfold against the sides.
4. Fluff the top edges above the rim, then settle the product into the center without pressing the tissue flat.

The new person's mistake is pushing the product down hard to make it feel secure. That compresses the nest and makes the basket look sad again. If you need the product higher, put a layer of crumpled paper in the basket first and build the tissue nest above it.

On supplies: I buy 20-inch tissue paper by the case from Fillmore Container. The per-sheet cost is lower than craft-store tissue, and the colors stay consistent between orders. That consistency matters more than people think.

What is the most expensive packaging mistake you've made?

Approving a proof without checking the contact information. In 2022, I signed off on 5,000 labels that carried the company's old phone number. Customers calling that number reached a business that had closed. The reprint cost $890 and delayed our shipments by a week.

It happened because we did not have a formal proof review process. My review consisted of looking at the logo, thinking 'looks good,' and signing. I verified everything except the one detail that could not be forgiven.

After a third proof-related mistake that year, I made a checklist. Now every order gets the same review:

• Company name, phone number, and website match current records.
• Art files are vector, or raster images are at least 300 DPI at final size.
• Brand colors have Pantone numbers, not nicknames.
• Quantities and measurements match the purchase order.
• For curved items, the safe print area is confirmed.

The checklist has caught 19 issues in the last 18 months. One was a wrong barcode on 4,000 retail packages that would have become a $2,000 problem. Catching it at the proof stage cost nothing.

How do I compare packaging quotes without falling for the lowest price?

In 2021, I compared two quotes for the same custom packaging job. One came in around $500. The other around $650. I went with the lower quote because the math seemed obvious. The final invoice was over $800 after shipping, setup fees, and two rounds of proof revisions. The higher quote had included all of those.

The more expensive quote was actually cheaper. It just didn't look that way at first glance.

The costs I now ask every supplier to itemize:

• Unit price multiplied by exact quantity
• Art, plate, or setup fees
• Proof and revision charges
• Freight and delivery fees
• Reorder pricing and standard turnaround

If a supplier includes everything in one number, even better. The point is to compare the same scope. My standard question is: what is the total delivered cost, and what is included in it? I stopped asking for per-unit price alone, and that one change has saved me more than any single price break I've ever negotiated.