Bentonville packaging company Rapid rebrands, expands to Tontitown

Bentonville-based corrugated packaging company Rapid recently rebranded from Rapid Prototypes and moved into a 14,000-square-foot warehouse in Tontitown.

Including the existing 25,000-square-foot facility on Walton Boulevard in Bentonville, the company’s footprint has grown to 39,000 square feet with the addition of its second location in an industrial park along U.S. Highway 412 in Tontitown. Also, the company recently added about 10 employees, growing its staff to more than 50.

Owner Kyle Jack said the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected business initially, and sales were down 30%-40% in 2020, from 2019. But sales have bounced back as the company’s refocused its business amid the recent e-commerce boom. He expects sales to be up 10%-15% in 2021, from 2019.

“We’ve come out of the pandemic with a lot of e-commerce type packaging,” he said. “Subscription boxes, mailer boxes … like a Bespoke Post monthly subscription that comes in a box. We are printing those type of subscription boxes for these companies. We probably produce 5,000-10,000 boxes like that every one to two days.”

The recent addition of equipment at the Bentonville facility has allowed the company to double its production capacity. It has also started to offer faster lead times and pro-packing and assembly services, he said. With the new Tontitown location, the company can produce, pack and ship products for customers.

Production takes place in Bentonville, and the Tontitown warehouse will be for assembly, pack out and distribution. He noted the addition of the Tontitown location was out of necessity because of a lack of available warehouse space.

The rebranding was completed to better represent the company’s offerings.

“We’re more than just prototypes,” Jack said. “That’s still obviously prevalent what we do every day, but that’s not the only thing we do.”