Your business has so many opportunities to market itself, and you should take advantage of all of them. One of those moments you may not immediately think about is plastic shipping bags. When you ship your product to the customer, the first thing they will see is your name and logo, leading to long-term brand recognition. There are a few basic printing techniques that are used to print on poly mailer bags.
Inkjet Printing
If you are printing in a small run, you could possibly take advantage of inkjet printing to create custom shipping bags. This doesn’t mean running it through your home computer printer, but rather you would use a special handheld printer that would imprint on the envelope. Keep in mind, this may not be your best technique if you have a detailed image you want to put on the bag.
Screen Printing
Again, if you are doing a short run of bags, this is a good option. The process is not unlike screen printing on textiles. You put down a large, flat piece that’s sometimes known as a platen, and the bag is placed on top of that. The platen will keep the bag secure. A metal screen with your design is placed on top of the bag, and then a squeegee pulls ink across the screen. The downside to this technique is that you’re somewhat limited in number of colors, and you have to do one bag at a time.
Flexography
Flexography is one of the most popular techniques for printing on plastic shipping envelopes and bags. It works in a process that’s very similar to letterpress printing. Letterpress is very rigid and flat, but uses raised letters to print on the paper. Flexography uses relief letters and images as well, but in this case the plate is flexible. Rolls of plastic that will become the bags are pulled through the rollers of a heat plate machine, and as the flexed plate rolls on the roller, the words and images are printed on the bags. The plastic will have rewound itself at the other end of the web press. Again using the heat press machine, the now printed plastic will pass through again, this time using the heat to seal the bag.
As you can see, there are many different ways to print your name or image on plastic shipping bags. Identify what volume your company needs so you can make the best printing decision for your company.
For information about our company and what we offer, please contact us online https://www.polypak.com/ or call 800.826.4000 to speak with a company representative.
