You have referenced my latest blog and successfully chosen the most appropriate bubble mailer to ship your product – now what?? Knowing where to start can be daunting, and it’s easy to miss a few key factors when making a packaging decision. So let me walk you through the steps from mailer selection to your brand new packages arriving at your doorstep (or warehouse, or wherever you might be working from)!
Quantity
First thing’s first, you’ll need to determine the quantity of mailers needed. As with most purchases, this is a major deciding factor. Quantity determines the price you’ll pay, the time you’ll have to wait for your mailers to arrive (lead time), and whether you’ll be able to custom brand your packages or not.
If you desire a custom printed mailers, you’ll be looking at a minimum of 25,000+ mailers per size. If you won’t be needing that quantity any time soon, it’ll be most cost effective for you to stick with our stock mailers. These are available is several sizes and are ready to ship – no waiting around!! If you are still bummed that your mailers aren’t branded, a custom label is a great option. There are many styles, shapes, and colors available including those with clear backgrounds to easily match and blend in with your bubble mailer.
Size
Possibly even more important than quantity is size. If you are going the stock mailer route, you’ll have more flexibility being able to order several sizes in smaller quantities. If you are doing a custom mailer, you’re committing to at least 25,000 of each size. While you’d love to have 3 different sizes, perhaps you only want to order 25,000 or 50,000 mailers total.
Either way, I highly recommend utilizing PAC’s Mailer Size Calculator. Simply select whether you are shipping “Fragile Goods”, “Soft Goods”, or “Do Not Bend” items. Since you’ve already decided upon a bubble mailer, you’d select “Fragile Goods” and enter the dimensions of the item you’ll be shipping. Hit “Submit” and you’ll see both the appropriately sized Airjacket (Poly Bubble Mailer) and Kraft Airjacket (Paper Bubble Mailer) for your product. When reducing the number of sizes you’ll need, be sure your largest items to be shipped fit in the largest sized mailer you order.
One last point I want to make on Size – If you’re going the custom route, another option is a custom sized mailer. While we do have plenty of stock sizes available, perhaps you have a unique item that requires a different size. We can definitely do that for you (within limits), but please be warned that the minimums may be higher due to the specially ordered film.
Printing
On to the fun part!! Creating a custom printed mailer is always exciting and the possibilities are seemingly endless. We can print up to 6 ink colors on two sides for any of our poly bubble, Kraft bubble, flat poly, or paperboard mailers. I encourage you to play around with some design ideas on PAC’s Build-A-Mailer tool to see what your branding would look like on a mailer.
One specification to be aware of are printing plates. A typical printing plate will place ink up to a ¼” from the edge of your mailer, leaving a white boarder. While this outline is minimal, some designs look best with an edge-to-edge print. We can certainly achieve the look you want, but it will require a printing cylinder which runs approximately 4-5x the cost of a traditional printing plate.
We’ve touched on all the key points to consider before placing an order for mailers. I certainly hope you now feel prepared, but if you’d still like some guidance we at PAC would be more than willing to help walk you through the decision making process. Give us a call at 425-284-7019 or shoot us an email at [email protected]. Another quick and easy way to get an answer to your question – leave me a comment below and I’ll be sure to get back to you. Until next time at Let’s Talk Packaging!