How David & Bear Created Dual Purpose Packaging

David & Bear owner Sean Webb wanted to help all parents by providing products that were affordable, stylish, long lasting and easy to use. He also wanted packaging that could be reused to store particular products.

If you know kids, you know they have a few universal talents:
a. Using their imagination
b. Having fun
c. Making messes

Every parent out there knows that the secret sauce to keeping kids busy involves combining a + b with (hopefully) a minimal amount of c. We recently printed packaging for David & Bear, a company that developed a product around this exact recipe. 

Custom boxes from David and Bear.

The family-owned company, named after Sean’s two boys, offers a fort building kit that works just about anywhere. (All you need is a blanket.) We spoke with Sean about how he got started in this e-commerce business and how their Fort Builders kit works to encourage kid’s imagination and playfulness.

Talk beginnings. How did you get into products for children?

As parents, we were inspired to design products that help little ones use their imagination, be creative, and provide Mom and Dad the accessories they need to make parenting easier. We offer blanket Fort Building Kits, Multi-use Car Seat Covers and Nursing Covers in various designs. We designed all our products to be affordable, stylish, and long lasting. These were important features we could not find in balance online or in retail stores. Another passion of ours is for full-time mommies, whether they stay at home or commute to work, they are always on call, and we want to provide a helping hand by offering products that are practical and easy to use.

Custom packaging from David and Bear

Why did you decide to use custom packaging? How does it add to your business?

The David & Bear Fort Building Kit fits perfectly inside a strong and durable custom designed box. We wanted packaging made of sustainable and recyclable materials that is dual purpose, for shipping and for first impressions. Both have their own unique requirements.

Shipping requires a box that is strong and durable to get the product to our customers just as it left our facility, in perfect working order. However, most poly mailers or other shipping material need to be disposed of once the product reaches the customer. By working with CompanyBox, we were able to provide a practical use of our box. We incorporated a fun & lighthearted, outdoor camping inspired design that is also used to store the pieces of our product when not in use. From our research, it’s important for our customers for storage and grab-and-go purposes. Most multi-piece toy products are easily lost because the package the customer receives will be disposed of since it’s not designed to be kept or used as storage. As easy as it is to build a fort, its just as quick and easy to put away and store for the next playtime with the unique quick tab release.

David & Bear fort kit
Source: David & Bear’s® website

All kids love creating forts! Tell us more about your product.

We were inspired to design it to help little ones use their imagination and be creative. The fort building kit provided them with this unique ability. We wanted to offer the product to other Moms and Dads out there that needed something simple, yet effective and affordable to build play forts.

Building pillow and blanket forts was something we have the best memories of as kids and we wanted to create something that made enjoying forts for our kids easier and simpler. The Fort Kit provides the perfect solution for this. We love how David & Bear’s® Fort Building Kit is compatible with any size blanket, and because the accessories compact easily for storage, its portable and small enough that it fits perfectly in a drawer or cabinet when not being used.

Most Fort building products on the market today are expensive, elaborate, come with many pieces, or do not provide the strength to be very long lasting. To solve this, we invested in the largest, strongest, and most durable suction cups available from our suppliers (This isn’t your average suction cup! They are about the size of your palm, over 3.5 inches in diameter!) We coupled this with strong elastic ties that flex and twist to anchor the blanket to the suction cup and window. Using the kit, a fort can be assembled in less than 30 seconds and will be able to withstand tugging and stretching when your little ones are playing and crawling around inside.

We love the designs you created. Talk about the design process and inspiration for your boxes.

We focused on lighthearted designs inspired by children and art, that feature bright colors, shapes, and animals. Mosaic stained glass and giraffe pattern spots are features of a few of our designs. CompanyBox made the iterative design process easier than ever before, with their online design portal, no minimum order quantity (MOQ) requirement, and a very helpful and knowledgeable staff available to discuss any questions we had on processing and printing our designs.

One of the best parts of working with CompanyBox was the ability to iterate through our designs and receive samples in a matter of days. This made getting our products to market much simpler and easier than we had anticipated. They don’t outsource to overseas suppliers, cutting out the middle-man and extra fees, which we discovered was hard to find in a custom packaging supplier.

What tips would you give someone hoping to start their own e-commerce business?

Reflect on why you are interested in creating a business. Finding out why you are passionate in the industry you have chosen will help propel your business to success. It is this passion that will drive innovation, creativity, and a well-established investment strategy.

Conduct market research and invest in an area that isn’t over saturated, and on products that solve problems and provide a good value to your customers. Partner with suppliers that provide great value and work hard to do so. Most importantly, incorporate a way to serve others and give back!

Interested in creating custom packaging for your story and business? We want to be a part of your story. Also, check out David & Bear through Amazon Prime and their “How To” video on YouTube.


How can we help?

We’re all ears. Drop us a line and we’ll get in touch!

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