Oh if I had a dollar for every time we've heard that a customer found a printed stand bag on Alibaba or some other Asian website. Frankly, you are probably right, whether you choose to use an overseas supplier for your custom printed stand up pouches or even jumping on the Internet to find a domestic US supplier, you can always find someone willing to quote you cheaper. The problem is, will they be cheaper when everything is said and done? Will the savings you feel you've extracted offset all of the other things that quite possibly could affect the price of your stand up bags as well? Let me dig into this issue a little further.
There are times that I wish custom printed stand up pouches were simple to make, snap my fingers and colors would match perfectly, artwork creation would be a breeze, file transfers wouldn't get hung up on email servers, the materials would be readily available, etc. In other words, all the stars would align and bing, bang, boom they would be done. Well, that's not going to happen very often.
In reality, there are many facets of a custom printed stand up pouch, and all of these steps need to be covered. But the ones people are most concerned with are below
- Size-Thickness
- Artwork Creation
- Material Selection
- Color Matching
On the other hand, there are a few more steps that a customer really should be thinking about as well.
- Printing Cylinders
- Production Quality--Size-Thickness
- Quality Checks--Print Tolerances--Registration
- Shipping-Handling-Lead Time
Oh...and one more thing to keep in mind. What If There Is A Problem? Who are you going to call if there is a problem, your contact from the email at Alibaba that gave you the cheap price and collected a down-payment or even full payment on your order? Hmmmm
In subsequent posts, I'm going to detail some of the good and not so good when dealing with overseas suppliers for stand up pouches or any product for that matter. Before you think this is a gloom and doom blog post, think again, because with the right representation overseas, someone who is looking out for your best interest, anything is possible.
An old saying still rings true, watch what the "big boys" are doing and do the same. Companies like Apple, Nike, and Dell all produce overseas but I guarantee you they aren't searching on Alibaba for the cheapest price and throwing their money out the window. They have help. If you want to bring in printed stand bags from overseas, you should have help too. More tomorrow, stay tuned!
Bonus: Case Study Video
Quick Tip...
want to be eco-friendly? Reduce the amount of packaging you use that ultimately gets thrown away. Use thinner plastic, change from a rigid plastic jug to a flexible bag, eliminate excess packaging, etc. Reduction is by far the #1 way to help our environment over recycling and reusing.