Folding cartons with a 1-2-3 snap lock bottom, so heavier stuff like glass jars, bottles and metal parts stays put with no tape or glue. Full color on SBS, kraft or E-flute corrugated. They ship flat and fold by hand in a few seconds.
Your time is very important to us so we have kept it short.
Try this. Put a glass jar of body scrub in a regular tuck end box, lift it by the top, and watch the bottom flap start to bow, which is exactly what custom snap lock boxes are for, since the bottom is four flaps that fold and lock into each other in a quick three-step move (that’s why people in the trade call them 1-2-3 bottom boxes).
They sit in a handy middle spot. Stronger underneath than a tuck end, cheaper than a pre-glued crash lock carton, nowhere near rigid box money. We see them a lot with candles in glass, sauces, heavy creams, hardware, small home goods.
Here’s the clever bit. The product sits on the locked bottom and its own weight pushes the flaps down into each other, so the floor gets tighter under load, not looser.
A tuck flap? Only friction holding it. Snap lock is geometry.
Not magic, though, the board still has to suit the product, and a 4 oz jar is fine in 18 pt SBS but a 16 oz glass bottle really wants something thicker or E-flute corrugated, especially if the box ships by itself, so tell us the weight and we’ll be honest about which board makes sense.
They show up flat, glued along one side seam. Someone pops the box open, folds the four bottom flaps in order, presses till they click, drops the product in and closes the top tuck, and after the first twenty or so most people are down to a few seconds a box. No tape gun. No glue, no staples.
Shipping flat matters more than you’d think. A few hundred flat cartons fit on one shelf, the same boxes built up would eat a corner of the room. Packing hundreds of orders a week and sick of folding? An auto lock bottom box is pre-glued and forms its own bottom when you open it, and for light items a plain tuck end box costs less and does the job fine.
For retail shelves we’d say SBS paperboard, the print comes out brightest. Kraft has that natural brown look that handmade soap and candle people like (food too). E-flute corrugated gives real crush strength for heavier or shipped products, and if you’re torn, our post on cardstock vs corrugated walks through it.
Then the extras. Matte or gloss lamination, soft-touch, spot UV, gold or silver foil, embossing, or a window so shoppers can see the jar, and if the bottle’s narrower than the box an insert stops it rattling. Our designers set up the dieline and place your artwork at no extra cost, then send a digital proof, and with heavy products we’d honestly ask for a physical sample before the bulk run. Minimums are low (often around 50 boxes depending on size), production is 10 to 12 business days after approval, shipping’s free within the USA. Other structures are in our box styles section, or send us your product size for a quote.
Comes down to the board more than the bottom. Paperboard ones handle most jars and bottles up to around a pound, corrugated goes heavier.
Nope. A crash lock (auto lock) is pre-glued and forms itself, a snap lock gets folded by hand, and snap locks usually cost a little less.
Yes. A simple paperboard insert with a cutout keeps the bottle centered so it’s not knocking the walls.
Plenty of customers order this alongside custom auto lock bottom boxes, custom tuck end boxes, custom thumb cut boxes and custom twist top boxes. More styles are in by style.
