Metallic mailers are now available from manufacturers on Lumi. Printed or unprinted, these reflective shippers really shine.
Expandable Poly Mailers are also available. These add extra dimension to standard poly mailers with the addition of a bottom gusset or side gussets to add depth for bulkier products and soft goods.
Say hello to seven new additions to the Inner Bag category. A great inner bag has the power to protect your products from manufacturing to distribution, help your fulfillment team stay organized, and even elevate your unboxing.
This new cohort introduces a variety of closures and opacities so you can find the best combination for your use case. No there are 16 inner bag options to explore and order from manufacturers in Lumi.
The perks of plastic are that it's low-weight, low-volume, and water-resistant, with a low unit cost. But plastic takes a serious hit when it comes to recovery, because most of it ends up in landfills. That's where alternative plastics come in, but they can be tricky. Many still contain plastic and can only be composted in the high-heat environment of an industrial facility.
That's why we're excited about a new addition to Lumi Materials: PHA film. PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) is a compostable plastic that’s entirely bio-based, derived from bacterial fermentation. Unlike PLA, PHA does not contain any fossil fuel derivatives, making it renewable and plastic-free. It's even home compostable, and will break down in a few months.
On Lumi, PHA is available as an alternative option for plastic film products including compostable poly mailers and inner bags. It offers the benefits of poly — water resistance, low weight, and low volume — but with a more sustainable end-of-life. The look and feel is comparable to the poly you're used to — smooth and malleable with a little stretch. It's shelf stable, as it's resistant to UV rays, heat, and moisture.
PHA can not be recycled, and composting is the ideal end-of-life phase. While municipal composting is not yet widely available, the reality is that even in a landfill, these bags will break down much faster than traditional plastic (which takes decades to degrade into microplastics). Brands looking to use PHA may want to consider adequate messaging for proper disposal, or a takeback program to better ensure best-case disposal by composting in bulk with an industrial facility.
Right now, there is one supplier offering PHA film on Lumi — BIOLO. BIOLO is one of the only PHA film suppliers in the US and the first PHA supplier on Lumi. They extrude, convert, manufacture, and print bags made with Danimer Scientific's polyhydroxyalkanoate PHA based resin, Nodax® which is derived from canola plants. Their PHA bags are certified by TUV OK Compost for home composting, up to 2mil. Cover photo via BIOLO.
With new suppliers on Lumi, our catalog has expanded to include child packaging that complies with ASTM D3475. We're excited to make these items available to brands with products requiring this additional layer of regulated protection. There are 3 different form factors with options in paper and plastic.
Paper-based options are made from renewable materials, they're easily curbside recyclable and have options for recycled content. Laminated pouches offer the benefit of volume reduction and weight reduction.
The new version of Lumi for Suppliers is now available and includes significant improvements for payments, user management and fulfillments. Let's dive in!
Settlement times for invoice payments have been significantly reduced. You can expect to receive bank transfers between 4 to 8 weekdays faster than before.
We've made it easier to add and remove users on your Lumi Supplier account. Go to Settings > Users to see the new view, or read our guide on inviting users.
You can now cancel fulfillments as long as the customer has not submitted payment on the associated invoice. This can be useful if you have accidentally submitted incorrect information, or a last minute change has been requested.
We are beginning to open new custom invoicing capabilities for payments that fall outside of the standard order flow. This type of invoice can be useful when you need to charge a customer for samples, expedited delivery, or other products and services that a customer may have requested outside of the standard quoting process.
If you would like to use the new custom invoices, please reach out to us!
Are you thinking about switching to plastic-free packaging? Then you know the options out there can be limited. That's why we are so excited to share three new sustainable, paper-based products that are now available directly from manufacturers on Lumi:
All three products have the benefits of paper-based products, being curbside recyclable, compostable, renewable, and made from responsibly-sourced paper. In addition, they are available from US-based manufacturer Seaman Paper which helps reduce the transit time and ocean freight costs from overseas production.
The new version of Lumi for Suppliers brings a host of big improvements to help you tailor opportunity notifications, customize your profile page to receive more customers, and track the status of payments. Let's jump right in.
You can now tailor Marketplace opportunity notifications with two new options in your Notifications settings:
The new Profile Manager allows you to edit the profile pages for your locations. Completing your profile page helps customers find you, and build trust in your capabilities. You can now easily add:
The new Billing view brings all your invoices and customer payments into one convenient location. Now you can:
In addition, we've made it easier to reconcile your payouts by adding metadata to payments in Stripe. Each payment will now include all the reference information you need to match payouts to unique IDs for POs, invoices, and customers.
It's now possible to request quotes for multiple items at the same time!
When you create a quote request, you can now add as many items as you want. A multi-item request is useful for quoting items that will be produced together, for products that come in multiple sizes, flavors, colors, etc. You can also use multi-item quotes for packaging that contains multiple sub-components like inner boxes and inserts.
Suppliers will see a multi-item quote request if all the items included match their capabilities. As you add items you'll see how many suppliers can offer all of the items in one quote.
Additionally, we've made it easier to compare quotes between different items and suppliers at a glance from the quote request page.
Previously, Chinese suppliers were only available to Lumi Managed customers. Now, anyone with a Lumi subscription plan can send quote requests, get pricing, place orders, and send messages directly with hundreds vetted factories in the US and China. Factories in China are a good option for many plastic and fabric items. They're also an efficient choice if your packaging is shipped to a co-packer in China. Browse suppliers in China →
Poly mailers and fabric bags
With high-quality rotogravure capabilities and more affordable tooling, Chinese factories are a great fit for products such as poly mailers, compostable poly mailers, and standup pouches. Inner bags span a range of materials, from clear plastic and frosted plastic to various fabrics.
Boxes, cartons, and collateral
Sourcing paper items overseas can be an opportunity to optimize your supply chain if you're already receiving finished or kitted goods from China.
Today, we’re making it simpler to keep up with your quote requests. Until now, you needed to log in to get a snapshot of all your quotes, and you needed to set up reminders about accepted quotes expiring on your own. Now Lumi sends you a weekly digest of your open quote requests and even sends you a reminder seven days before an accepted quote expires.
On top of these digests, we’ve also spent the last few weeks polishing the quote request flows across Lumi. As a result, you should see faster loading times, on-page design improvements, and supplier logos.
With the release of multi-account access last month, we've also made improvements for managing multiple clients:
