Stationery Boxes

Two-piece stationery boxes with a separate lid and base, for UK retailers, e-commerce sellers, gift brands and subscription businesses. Also sold as lid and base boxes, A4 postal boxes, white postal boxes, presentation boxes or postal gift boxes. Corrugated, supplied flat in trade packs, in natural kraft brown or smooth white, manufacturer-direct.

What a lid and base box does that a one-piece box doesn’t

A standard postal box is one piece: you fold it, fill it, and seal the flap shut. A lid and base box is two separate pieces — a tray that holds the contents and a lid that slides down over it.

That difference matters in three places.

The unboxing. A lid lifts off. A sealed flap has to be cut, and the customer is holding a knife over your product. For anything bought as a gift, or anything a subscriber opens twelve times a year, that is the whole experience.

The reseal. A lid and base box closes again. Returns go back in the box they arrived in, which is cheaper for you and easier for the customer than finding something else to pack it in.

The print surface. The lid is one clean unbroken panel with no flaps crossing it. If you are printing, branding or applying a sleeve, it is the easiest surface in corrugated packaging to work with.

What you give up is depth efficiency. A lid overlaps the base, so a two-piece box uses slightly more board than a one-piece box of the same capacity. You are paying for presentation, and it is worth knowing that is what you are paying for.

The size: A4, with room to spare

One size, two colours. The internal dimensions are 305 × 215 × 57mm.

That takes A4 (297 × 210mm) with 8mm clearance on the length and 5mm on the width — enough to get a hand in and out without forcing the contents, which is the difference between an A4 box and a box an A4 sheet technically fits in.

At 57mm deep it holds a genuine stack: a hardback notebook and a pen, a boxed candle, a folded garment, a six-item subscription selection.

Postage: this is a Small Parcel

Worth being exact, because the depth decides it and people assume otherwise.

• Royal Mail Large Letter — up to 353 × 250 × 25mm and 750g. At 57mm deep, these are nowhere near it.
• Royal Mail Small Parcel — up to 450 × 350 × 160mm and 2kg. Comfortably inside, with room on every dimension.

If Large Letter rates are what you are buying for, your product has to be under 25mm packed, and that is a letterbox box, not this page.

Watch volumetric weight. At 305 × 215 × 57mm this box works out at roughly 0.75kg volumetric on a 5000 divisor. Most couriers charge the greater of actual and volumetric weight, so if your contents weigh less than that, the box size is setting your postage, not the product.

White or kraft

Same box, same board, same price break structure. The choice is what the customer sees.

Kraft brown reads as unbleached and minimal. It suits brands whose customers notice packaging waste, and it takes a printed sleeve or a stamped logo well.

Smooth white is a blank canvas. If you are using branded tissue, a printed insert, a sticker seal or direct print, white gives you the cleanest colour reproduction and the sharpest contrast.

Neither is more recyclable than the other. Both go in the household paper collection.

What these suit

• Stationery, notebooks and planners
• Greeting card sets, prints and art supplies
• Gift sets and hampers where the box is part of the product
• Subscription boxes needing more depth than a letterbox box allows
• Folded clothing and accessories
• Candles, ceramics and small homeware with an inner wrap
• Anything being resold in the box it arrives in

Which box do you actually need?

These — presentation matters, the box gets opened in front of someone, or it needs to close again. A4 footprint, 57mm deep.

Letterbox boxes — your product is under 25mm packed and you want Royal Mail Large Letter rates and delivery through the door rather than a doorstep handover.

Postal boxes — one-piece FEFCO 0427 with a peel-and-seal strip. Cheaper per box, faster to pack, no separate lid. The right answer when nobody is going to admire the packaging.

Ecommerce postal boxes — the same thing with a crash-lock base, which saves three or four seconds a parcel and pays for itself at volume.

Board backed envelopes — flat items with no depth at all.

The honest rule: buy a lid and base box when the opening matters. When it doesn’t, a one-piece box does the same protective job for less.

Buying by the pack

Supplied flat in trade packs with price breaks as quantities increase. Flat delivery matters on a two-piece box — lids and bases nest, so a pallet holds far more than it would of a made-up equivalent.

We buy these direct from the manufacturer as part of a manufacturing group, at volumes a reseller can’t reach, and hold them across more than 100,000 square feet of warehousing. No middleman margin, and stock on the shelf rather than on order.

Need a size we don’t list, or a printed lid? Tell us what you’re sending and we’ll quote it — bespoke is a conversation, not a no.

Delivery and returns

Order by 2pm, Monday to Friday, for same-day dispatch. Free UK mainland delivery in 1–2 working days, with a £75 minimum order. Full terms on our delivery and returns pages.