Poly Mailer Bags: Why Smart Online Sellers are Making the Switch

Feb 25, 2022 | Custom Printed Bags

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More individuals and businesses of all sizes than ever before are selling their products online through Etsy, Amazon, eBay Sellers, and other digital marketplaces. Smart online sellers are also making the switch from previous packaging choices to poly mailer bags. As your online selling ramps up, now is the time to realize the benefits you’ll experience by switching to poly mailers.

Box or Bag? Factors to Consider

If you’re used to shipping your products to customers in corrugated boxes and you’ve gone through the process of designing custom-printed boxes, it can be hard to get your brain around making the switch to poly mailers. After all, you like your branded boxes, and there will be a cost to redesigning your branding artwork to work on a poly mailer bag. This inertia can hold you back from making the switch, but don’t let it. This is a business decision you need to make by considering all the factors at play, including cost/affordability, physical requirements for your packaging, and even the environmental impact. 

Poly Mailers Can Reduce your Shipping Costs

For many businesses, this is the most important factor when it comes to deciding to switch from corrugated boxes to poly mailer bags. Shipping costs add up quickly over time, and if you can significantly reduce your shipping costs based on the type of packaging used to ship orders to customers, then you’ll keep reaping that reward for all future shipments. Sounds like a win-win, right? It is! 

The reason is simple: Poly mailers weigh much less than corrugated boxes. The weight of an empty poly mailer bag, depending on its size will weigh anywhere from 0.03 ounces to 0.4 ounces. A corresponding corrugated box is going to weigh significantly more than that. Plus, many shipping carriers will use the higher number between actual package weight or calculated dimensional weight because they can then charge more for packages taking up more room on a truck even though they’re lightweight. And if what you need to ship would benefit from bubble lining in the poly mailer, we can do that and it won’t even add to shipping costs.

Poly Mailers are Cheaper to Make, Costing You Less

You should always check with your vendor first to make sure the numbers work in your favor, but the per-unit cost of poly mailers can be way less than the per-unit cost of corrugated boxes when buying in bulk or wholesale, even when you add in custom printing. A growing number of businesses have discovered how the price point for customizing poly mailers is substantially lower than customizing boxes. It’s also worth noting that the items you ship are better protected in poly mailers when it comes to exposure to the elements because unlike corrugated, poly bags are water-resistant.

Poly Mailers Take Up Much Less Space

You’ve already learned how poly mailer bags take up less shipping space on carrier vehicles, but the same holds true when you consider the storage factor of your packaging materials. Even if your corrugated boxes are stored flat, they take up so much more room than flat poly mailers. And once you start assembling those boxes, space becomes even more of an issue. Compared to corrugated boxes, poly mailers take up very little room and don’t require any assembly.

Environmental Impact

The one thing that’s inescapable about poly mailer bags is that they are made from fossil fuel, which is oil, whereas corrugated boxes are made from trees, which are a renewable resource when managed properly. Both can be made from recycled materials, and both can be recycled. Corrugated, unfortunately, is much easier for consumers to recycle than poly mailers. While corrugated is accepted by curbside recycling programs, poly mailers are not. Because poly mailers are made from the same kind of plastic as shopping bags, people can put them in collection bins at grocery stores and big-box retailers that collect plastic shopping bags. Consumers would need to first remove any paper shipping labels from the bag before recycling. 

But the big environmental impact that matters the most comes with the transportation of packages. Because poly mailers weigh so much less and take up less room on trucks, the result is a big reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from shipping vehicles, which is a big win.

Extend Your Branding with Custom Printed Poly Mailers

Poly mailer bags can be custom printed in the same way corrugated boxes can be custom printed to extend your brand’s presence all the way through the customer receiving their order. It makes a big impact on customers when the package they receive carries your company’s brand in well-designed artwork printed right on the package. 

Whether you want one-color, two-color, or up to eight-color printing, Brown & Pratt has you covered. The minimum order on a one-color or two-color poly mailer is 3,000. Price breaks bring down the per-unit cost even further with orders of 5,000, 10,000, or 15,000. Our custom printed poly mailers come in nine different standard sizes, but we can also make whatever specific size you may need.

Brown & Pratt: Your Custom Printed Packaging Partner

We’ve been providing custom-printed packaging solutions to a broad cross-section of industries since 1954. We know how to make this work for restaurants, manufacturers, medical companies, warehousing and distribution, retailers, laundry and dry-cleaning establishments, and many other types of companies, including anyone selling items through online marketplaces. Get a feel for our work by exploring case studies of how we’ve collaborated with clients to achieve fantastic results. At the top of our portfolio page, click on a company logo to see the case study.

Our aim with each customer is to build a long-term partnership based on trust and meeting or exceeding your expectations. Our commitment to you is to mutually determine the best packaging solutions to meet your goals within your available budget. If you’re not ready to make the switch to poly mailers, you’ll be glad to know we specialize in custom printed shipping boxes as well as custom printed packaging tape.

If you’re ready to further extend your brand and save money with custom-printed poly mailer bags, we’re ready to help. Get in touch using the contact page of our website or call us directly at 317-353-1664 to start the conversation! 

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