"We needed faster launches, not a bigger team," said Mia, Operations Director at Lakebird Nails. The brand was spinning up seasonal shades and limited drops, but their label supply couldn’t keep pace. So they paired a new artwork process with a digital label program—partnering with stickeryou for flexible short runs while keeping long-run staples steady.
The brief from the founders was blunt: cut scrap, tighten color, and shorten the path from concept to shelf without blowing up unit cost. They were coming off a season with too many pre-printed cartons in storage and a long queue of SKUs waiting on labels. Expedited reprints were becoming the norm, not the exception.
Here’s where it gets interesting: they didn’t buy more equipment. They redesigned the workflow around digital printing, a clearer substrate strategy, and G7 color targets—then measured the result like hawks.
Company Overview and History
Lakebird Nails launched in 2018 as a DTC nail-care brand in North America, then moved into retail by 2021. The portfolio spans nail polish, gels, prep kits, and accessories, with gift sets around the holidays. By mid-2024, the SKU count had ballooned, which is great for marketing but tough on any label supply chain.
Seasonal drops took off. What started as 40–60 active SKUs grew to 180+ across sizes and finishes, with 30–35% of revenue tied to limited editions. E-commerce accounted for roughly 70–75% of sales, so photography consistency mattered as much as on-shelf impact. A small ops team handled it all; adding headcount wasn’t in the plan.
Packaging-wise, they leaned on pressure-sensitive labels for bottles and kits, with folding cartons for gift packs. The aim was a clean, "no-label look" on PET bottles and a tactile feel on special sets. That put the spotlight on substrate choice, ink, and finishing—especially when demand spiked on short notice.
Quality and Consistency Issues
The pain points showed up in numbers first. Scrap hovered around 8–10% on smaller runs, mostly due to color drift and late artwork tweaks. ΔE variance lived in the 3–4 range on key brand tones—fine for some categories, but too loose for nail-care swatches that live side-by-side in photos and on shelf.
Clear-on-bottle was another headache. With custom clear label stickers, adhesive show-through and white underprint coverage caused a Halo effect on frosted bottles. What looked perfect in the studio didn’t always hold up under store lighting. On top of that, small-data personalization tests were clunky.
Changeovers averaged 45–50 minutes, which sounds manageable until you’re juggling short runs and approvals. Meanwhile, their social team fielded quirky questions from fans—everything from shade-matching tips to "how to delete custom stickers on iphone" after a user-made sticker pack went viral. Noise, yes, but it underscored how brand visuals travel between packaging and screens.
Solution Design and Configuration
The turning point came when the team split the work: long-run staples stayed on an existing flexo partner, while short-to-mid runs and all fast-turn launches moved to a digital workflow with a white-underprint strategy. The brand partnered with stickeryou to dial in short-run labels on clear PP and PET labelstock, with G7-calibrated color targets and test swatches tied to hero shades.
Technically, they used UV-LED ink on clear PP labelstock with an opaque white underprint to achieve the no-label look. A 1.0–1.5 pt choke on the white layer reduced halos around fine typography. For certain gift packs, a soft-touch lamination on folding cartons, plus spot UV on logos, created contrast without heavy foiling. ΔE targets were set to 2.0 or tighter on brand-critical colors.
Workflow mattered just as much: variable data for shade names and batch codes, art locked with version control, and press profiles verified weekly. Minimums of 100–250 labels per SKU fit seasonal tests, with pilot lots validated under retail lighting. FPY benchmarks were tied to color and registration, not just visual sign-off, and a shared dashboard tracked scrap by cause—prepress, substrate, or press setup.
On the procurement side, the first pilots even tested checkout mechanics, including a small-quantity trial that used a stickeryou discount code to benchmark unit economics. Later, as volumes ramped for holiday sets, the team noted that seasonal stickeryou promo codes occasionally helped for limited drops, though the real economic lever was a cleaner, less wasteful run plan.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Six months in, the numbers told a clearer story. Scrap moved from 8–10% down to roughly 3–4% on short runs. ΔE tightened to 1.5–2.0 on the core palette (previously hovering around 3–4). FPY rose into the 92–94% band, up from the mid-80s (about 82–85%). Changeovers now average 20–25 minutes versus the earlier 45–50, and a typical shift yields 1,200–1,500 more saleable labels when running a mixed SKU day.
There’s a catch. White-underprint on certain frosted substrates still needs watch-outs: when micro-text sits on the edge of the white plate, you can see a faint halo under harsh lighting. The team’s mitigation is simple—widen the choke on those elements and use a slightly warmer white. On the sustainability front, lower scrap means their estimated CO₂/pack moved down by 8–12%, based on internal LCA assumptions; not a certification, but directionally helpful.
Commercially, limited releases ran smoother. In two regional tests, sell-through ran 10–15% higher versus prior seasons—packaging was one factor among several (new influencer tie-ins mattered, too). Artwork and process changes paid back in about 4–6 months. With nail-art kits on the roadmap, the team is exploring how to answer frequent community questions like "how to make custom nail stickers" via content and small-batch add-ons—keeping the same digital backbone. And yes, they’re keeping stickeryou in the mix for agile runs.
