How to Create a Welcome Box:
Step-by-Step Guide
This article is for business owners, HRs, and project managers who want to create a Welcome Box for their company as part of the onboarding process and avoid some common difficulties during the development process.
What is a Welcome Box?
A Welcome Box generally includes a set of corporate merch or ‘swag’ to present to new employees as they join the company.
This is a great way to say “hi!” to newcomers, make them feel part of the team from day one and inspire them to do great things. It’s a nice HR tool and also a good way to present the brand to new employees.
What should be included in your Welcome Box?
There’s no fixed content for it, so you can be creative here and think of some cool merch.
As for us, we’ve decided to include the most popular items that will help our newcomers feel like Wrikers from the very beginning. We also keep in mind our internal brand store where employees can buy specific swag with earned work points.
Our Welcome Box includes:
- Basic clothes and accessories collection (t-shirt, socks, and a shopper bag)
- Basic stationery collection (a pen, pencil, and notebook)
- A thermal coffee mug
- A lanyard with ID holder
- A branded envelope
- Welcome kit (a postcard with greetings from teammates and small “welcome” flags to create a celebratory atmosphere in the office or at home).
- A set of stickers, so the employee can brand anything they want and show the world they are a Wriker
So you’ve decided to create a Welcome Box. Where do you start?
Step 1. Decide on a budget and a main concept.
Think about what impression you want to make to your employees and candidates with your Welcome Box. Should this kit be pragmatic or emotional? Should it be serious or playful? Should it be the best quality or just a good price?
Step 2. List an approximate set of items and look for a reference.
This will help you collect some ideas and understand what is realistic to create and what is not. This list will help you to find common ground with vendors. Then, you can make simple drafts of what you want to design. Don’t spend too much time here and try not to concentrate on a single option. Some unique ideas are impossible to produce or will take too much time or money to make. For example, most vendors can print on a simple white mug, but if you want to print your design on a cool, black, soft-touch thermal mug, you’ll probably discover that most vendors don’t have the right items, are unable to print on them, the printing is too expensive, or the quality will be poor.
Step 3. Ask merchandise vendors for an item catalog.
There are lots of gifts and souvenir companies that provide a wide range of products (t-shirts, notebooks, stationery, cups, etc.). You can order different items from different vendors. Also, you can look for highly specialized vendors for specific items, like pottery or sewing workshops, for example. Sometimes it’s a good idea to look for small businesses with unique craft items. You can try to find these on Instagram or Etsy.
Step 4. Choose several items for the Welcome Box and order the samples.
If you can’t visit the vendor’s office to check the items yourself, you can have them sent to you to check the quality. In this case, it’s better to order several options as the one that looks good in a catalog may not be so good in real life.
Step 5. Ask for a technical print allowance for each item.
This will give you an idea of what design you can print and can save time on decision-making. For example, if there are two mug samples you like, but only one allows for full-color print, you might choose that one over another more complex design.
Step 6. Check that the samples fit your concept with quality and design.
Check the usability of the items. For example, some mugs won’t fit your coffee machine in the office.
Step 7. Discuss the limitations with the vendor.
They will know their items and which printing/producing technologies will work best. For example, some printing techniques will work poorly on some surfaces. For sewed items made from scratch, it’s a good idea to check thread colors in real life to see if they fit your color palette. Also, it’s a good idea to ask if the shapes could be stretched during the sewing process. Here’s our socks concept; sewed socks with the closest colors the vendor could match from their palette and sewed socks with our shapes stretched.
Step 8. Create the design.
Once you’ve found the right items with all the requirements and limitations, it’s time to design. Having researched your items ahead of time, you can save your designers time and energy on concepts that may not work out in the end.
Step 9. Order a signal sample with your design for testing before ordering a final batch. This one will probably cost you a lot, but it could save you from unexpected results like wrong colors, failed logo placement (some things that look good on a mockup won’t look so good in real life). Also, you can test printing quality, check the result and make design improvements if needed.
Step 10. Order the batch. Don’t forget to check the final items’ quality. They may differ from the signal sample due to production mistakes (as you can see on a photo, the left is a signal sample, the middle is a 1:1 scale mockup, and the right is a final sample). In this case, you can ask the vendor to fix it. Also, reserve some time for fixes on this step while planning the launch. Usually, the vendors can fix it, but it may not be immediate.
Time planning
The more items planned to be in the kit, the more variables will affect the duration of the project. For a well-prepared Welcome Box, I recommend planning at least three to four months in advance (in case you are doing it for the first time and have no approved vendors). The most time-consuming processes are coming up with ideas, searching for vendors, liaising with suppliers, and waiting for samples.
Keep in mind that some items may not have the required quantity and you may have to wait for a restock. It’s a good idea to ask the vendor about the stock balance for desired items before making a final decision.
Also, keep in mind that vendors may be overloaded with orders before national holidays such as Christmas or New Year’s, so this may affect your timing.
To sum up
A Welcome Box is a great way to support your company’s culture. It may not be a simple project, with lots of tricky questions and dependencies, but the points in this article may help you avoid most of the issues.
If you’d like to get some creative inspiration for your Welcome Box or any other design project, check our Design Team on Instagram.
