“We wanted every store rollout to feel fresh, on time, and low-carbon,” says Mei Lin, Operations Director at KirinWear. “We benchmarked against staples printing turnarounds in North America, then asked: what’s the Asia‑ready, lower‑emission version for us?”
KirinWear is a mid-sized apparel retailer with shops from Singapore to Seoul. In 2024, the team rethought how they produce in‑store posters, window clings, hangtags, and small folding cartons for accessories—moving from long hauls and overproduction to digital, local, and verifiable sustainable inputs.
We sat down with Mei Lin, Sustainability Lead Ravi Iyer, and their print partner’s color manager to unpack the decisions, the trade‑offs, and the actual numbers behind the shift.
Company Overview and History
Founded in 2012, KirinWear serves style‑conscious shoppers across Asia through 400 stores and a growing e‑commerce channel. Seasonal campaigns—six to eight a year—mean frequent poster refreshes, limited‑run gift cartons, and variable labels for regional languages. “We used to ship everything from two hubs,” Mei Lin explains. “Great for control, not great for carbon—or for speed when weather or customs got in the way.”
Before the redesign, the team tested pop‑up merchandising kits, even small runs of staff tees via staples t shirt printing for events in Tokyo and Taipei. The quick wins were real, but the broader system lagged. “We needed consistency across substrates and stores, and we wanted to cut freight miles,” Mei Lin says. “That meant bringing production closer to each city without losing color control.”
Sustainability and Compliance Pressures
Ravi Iyer frames the mandate plainly: “Our board set a three‑year target to trim Scope 3 emissions from retail print and packaging. We committed to FSC or PEFC paperboard, water‑based ink where feasible, and G7‑aligned color control under ISO 12647.” For gift and accessory packaging that might touch skin or reside near cosmetics, the team also checked supplier declarations and good manufacturing practice aligned with EU 2023/2006. “It’s not food packaging,” he adds, “but we still screen for low‑migration risks when it makes sense.”
Here’s where it gets interesting. For ad‑hoc needs, teams sometimes turned to poster printing fedex while traveling—fast, but hard to track in a centralized sustainability ledger. “We proved that local on‑demand beats cross‑border shipping in most cases,” Ravi notes. Early life‑cycle estimates showed a 12–18% reduction in CO₂ per poster when printed within 50–100 km of the store compared to air‑freighting from a regional hub. The exact range fluctuates with substrate and kilowatt mix.
Waste mattered, too. Short campaigns once meant overruns and write‑offs of 10–20%. With on‑demand scheduling and better proofing, waste on posters and hangtags now lands closer to 3–4%, down from a 6–8% baseline. “Not every run is perfect,” Ravi cautions. “Humidity spikes in Southeast Asia can still surprise us, but the system catches problems earlier.”
Solution Design and Configuration
The core shift was to Digital Printing—primarily high‑end Inkjet Printing with water‑based ink for posters and hangtags, and LED‑UV for durable window pieces where needed. Substrates include FSC poster paper (170–200 gsm), CCNB for some backers, and paperboard for small cartons. “We reserve Offset Printing for very long runs,” says the color manager, “but most campaigns are Short‑Run and On‑Demand with tight ΔE targets.” Typical finishing uses matte varnishing; lamination is limited and replaced by soft‑touch coatings when durability is essential.
Q: How does the ordering workflow run day to day?
A: “We built a lightweight API that mirrors the simplicity of a staples printing order flow,” Mei Lin says. Store managers trigger SKUs from a pre‑approved catalog with locked artwork, regional text, and size options. Production windows batch by city to reduce changeover time. “Based on insights from staples printing’s work with multi‑location retailers, we prioritized predictable cutoffs and clear service tiers rather than chasing every custom request.”
What about cost and backups? The team evaluated local services akin to costco poster printing as contingency for late adds or unexpected event needs. “It’s handy as a safety valve,” Ravi explains, “but our primary network gives us traceability, color data, and substrate controls. The backup exists; the main lanes stay accountable.”
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Color accuracy holds at ΔE 1.5–2.5 on standard brand colors across the network. FPY% now averages 90–92% on posters, compared with 82–85% a year ago, with the remainder caught in pre‑press soft proofing. Changeover time for typical poster sizes sits around 22–28 minutes, down from 45 minutes when every job was custom. Energy tracking suggests kWh per poster is slightly higher on some LED‑UV runs, but freight‑related emissions come down enough to offset the difference in most countries on the grid mix KirinWear operates in.
People always ask, “how much does printing a poster cost?” For Asia, an 18×24 in (or A2‑ish) poster on FSC 170–200 gsm with water‑based ink typically runs USD 8–15 per unit in 50–150 quantities, tapering as volume consolidates. A 24×36 in size lands roughly USD 12–25 in short runs. Very large offset runs—think 1,000+—can reach USD 2–4 per unit, but setup time and storage erode the benefit for seasonal campaigns. Context matters: batching and city‑level planning swing the math.
Payback for the new workflow is estimated at 14–18 months, depending on campaign volume. The catch? “We had to train store teams to lock SKUs early and respect color routes,” Mei Lin admits. Humidity control and paper conditioning became non‑negotiable in coastal sites. Even so, the hybrid playbook—local digital for speed, limited offset for hero quantities—gives KirinWear the balance it wanted. As a benchmark, the team still watches how staples printing handles quick retail turns, then adapts what fits the region and the carbon math.
