Packaging is where QR mistakes get expensive. A poster misprint is a poster; a wrong code on 200,000 boxes is a quarter's margin. The failures are rarely about the code's artwork — they're about time: the box is printed once, and everything it points to keeps moving.
One code per SKU, not per campaign
The tempting shortcut is one code for the whole range pointing at the brand site. Six months later marketing wants the shampoo boxes going to the shampoo page. Give every SKU its own code from day one, and the destination decisions stay reversible forever. This is a spreadsheet problem, not a design problem: a CSV import turns a column of SKUs and a column of URLs into the whole batch, foldered per product line, in one pass.
Assume the destination will change
- Manuals get revised — the PDF the code was printed for is superseded within a year.
- Regulations move — ingredient disclosures and safety information change format and host.
- Campaigns end — the launch microsite gets retired, and a printed code pointing at a 404 is worse than no code.
Every one of these is a non-event if the printed code is dynamic: the box in the warehouse and the box on the shelf both start pointing at the new destination the moment you edit it. If you print static codes on packaging, print them only for things that are truly permanent — the product's identity, not its paperwork.
Give the print house vectors
Packaging is printed at sizes and screen rulings a 600px PNG was never meant for. Hand over SVG or EPS — the code as geometry, not pixels — and the same file works on the carton and the pallet wrap. PIXELQODE exports both, plus PDF, for every code including static ones.
Watch what the shelf tells you
Per-SKU codes make scan data mean something: which products get scanned, in which cities, at what hour. That's inventory of curiosity — which manuals are confusing, which promotions moved. The weekly report puts the movement per folder in a PDF you can forward to the brand team unedited.
The whole discipline in one line: print geometry, keep the meaning in software. Ink is permanent; your product line isn't. Set up the first batch free.