Printing takes place in many different forms and types. Paper, stickers, vinyl and even bags. Each type of printing has a different technique. This past week I had a customer ask me to figure out how to do printing on bags for them.
Typically that would be an easy process. They pick a colour and a quantity and I give them a quote. However printing on a bag has all sorts of rules.
Firstly, my customer wanted their bag to be printed in 4 colour process. For small runs, and they only wanted 800 bags, the only way to print is in 1 colour. To receive a bag order with 4 colour process, you need to order a minimum of 5,000 or 10,000 bags depending on the bag one is looking for. Then they asked about supplying their own bag and having us print on them. However when a paper bag is folded there are all sorts of creases put into it for both folding and the strap. That makes it that if the bag were to now run through a machine, there would be no guarantee that the bag would come out with a clean looking finish. In the end I suggested to my customer that I can get the bag for them, or they can get it for themselves if they have found it, and I could provide them with a clear sticker to put on the bag so that they could see their logo on the exact bag they are looking for.
Secondly, they wanted a specific colour bag, ivory. Not one that is often kept in stalk, so it now takes longer to get the bag, and it becomes a special order. However not all bags take a long period of time, it just depends on the image someone is looking for.
This is just one type of bag, and one way of dealing with it. Whether it be a plastic bag, or a paper bag there are many different ways to figure out how to solve a problem that may occur.
Anything can be done for money, but it is our goal to see how we can get the best value for our customers. In the end that is what we have done here with our bags! What type of printing on bags would you like to see?