All You Need To Know About Shrink Sleeves

What are shrink sleeves?
Though the name may suggest otherwise, shrink sleeves are actually a form of labels that are fast becoming popular. Indeed, it is one segment that’s growing fast in the label industry. More and more brands want to ensure that their packaging is aesthetically appealing to the customers. In a highly competitive world, it is important for them to make a mark and be distinctive. And they adapt shrink sleeve labels to achieve this end.
The industries that are adapting shrink sleeves are food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, household products etc.
It is the age of cheap duplicates. There are many companies that copy a more popular and established brand and use similar labels in order to sell their products. This is where shrink sleeves come in and offer a big advantage for brands. The design choices are multiple and flexible, allowing brands to stand out and be recognized.
Advantages
Shrink sleeves are more durable, allow having full body designs on the container, are water and abrasion resistant as well. The most important part is that the labels can be removed and the containers can be reused. This makes for an ecofriendly option and saving in cost. Though shrink sleeves are slightly more costly initially, in the long run, this works out better.
Since you can have full body designs, you have scope for more color and graphics choices that are impactful and capture attention. These can be used on a wide variety of container materials like plastics, glass and metal. They are seamless and fit into any shape of containers, giving it a different look accentuating the shape of the container.
Another important aspect is to have the barcodes on the product. Shrink sleeves allow you to have this, but with a rider. Scanning of bar codes is sensitive and hence bar codes should be strategically placed on the container. It should be put vertically in a place where the bar code can be scanned as is without any curves of the container interfering with the scanning.
Shrink sleeves are durable to store and transport and are mostly damage proof. However, they should be kept in a cool environment of temperatures of 30 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit as otherwise higher temperatures may cause it to shrink prematurely rendering it useless.
Materials used
Shrink sleeves are mostly manufactured using two materials, namely Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol-modified (PETG) and Polyvinyl chloride (PVC). PVC is most cost effective of the choices as it’s per unit cost is less and is better to use in few cases than PETG. PETG however, has the highest shrink percentage and is also recyclable, which is a big plus making it the most popular of the choices. It is also readily available.
It is important to get the sleeve size, slit width, lay flat size, cut length, print width and height correct. It is best to share sample containers with the shrink sleeves manufacturer and they also offer prototypes.
The shrink sleeve industry is growing at a fast paced 20% and is here to stay. With so many advantages, this is something that brands cannot choose to ignore.
At Anchor Printing, we take pride in offering our clients cut & stack labeling, pressure sensitive labels, roll-fed labeling, shrink sleeves as well as flexible packaging options. Contact us today at http://anchorprinting.com for all of your product label design, printing and packaging needs.

Shrink Sleeve Manufacturing

Shrink sleeves are a cost-effective packaging method available for labeling and decorating the consumer products. The packaging enables better utilization of space and outlines the details of the product. Consumers are often attracted by the labels and details cut out on the product. Shrink sleeves give justice to the consumer by highlighting the minute details of the product.

Shrink Sleeve Manufacturing:
Shrink sleeves are available in different materials:

• Polypropylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG): PETG is the most expensive shrink sleeve material. It has excellent coherence and print standards. It is recyclable and most opted material for shrink sleeve packaging.
• Polylactic acid (PLA): PLA Packaging comes from biodegradable waste and is a current trend to choose PLA packaging.
• Expanded Polystyrene (EPS): EPS is also made from the recyclable thermoplastic material. It is highly resistant to heat.
• PolyVinyl Chloride (PVC): PVC is the most commonly used and cost effective shrink sleeves material compared to other materials. Shrink sleeves made from PVC have good coherence and print standards. It is less environmentally friendly and hence not preferred in the recent age.

Shrink sleeves made from any of the above materials can be applied on the products by two methods: manual application method and automated application method.

Manual Application Method: Shrink sleeve is manually placed over the product. Heat waves are given using a heat gun/ a dryer to adapt the preferred shape. This type of application is suited for sample models in small numbers.

Automated Application Method:  Diversified machines are used to slip the shrink sleeve on the product and a heat treatment is given to form a perfect fit for the product.

Perforations: Shrink sleeves provide perforations, it helps consumers to simplify the removal of the packaging done on the product. This ensures the consumer that the container is not used earlier. Different types of perforations are available on the need basis.

Colors and printing styles: The number of colors chosen on the shrink sleeve for the product design is directly proportional to the cost of packaging. Different printing styles are available on shrink sleeves, like digital printing, flexographic printing, gravure printing and the web offset printing. One can easily select the print style based on the cost estimate and quality of the graphics. Gravure is the costliest style of printing and digital is the most reasonable style of printing.

Types of Shrink sleeves: Shrink sleeves are available in different types, like full body shrink sleeves, shrink sleeves to cover only a portion of the product, shrink sleeves to avoid tampering and shrink sleeve for combination packing of products.

An illustration of the Shrink sleeve process:

1. The initial step is to accumulate the sample container and the graphics on the container.
2. Appropriate strength material is selected for the container and an alluring graphics to obtain the desired end product.
3. Application of the shrink sleeve can be done manually on the product or done by machine. In the machine application process, appropriate heat has to be provided to avoid shrink sleeve damage. After a proper fit of the shrink sleeve package on the container, the finished product is ready.

Advantages of shrink sleeve packaging:

• Sleeves allow complete utilization of the container body. Utilization, when paired with exceptional graphics, is a hit in the market.
• Sleeves undergo a heat treatment to perfectly fit the container body. Hence, any shape of the container can be selected to contour and outgrow in the market.
• Sleeves are applicable for all kinds of materials like metal, glass, and plastic. The sleeves give a perfectly smooth finish on the container.
• To avoid tampering of the product, sleeves can be used on the cap of the container. This ensures trust and safety of the product.
• Shrink sleeves are all moisture resistant. This makes it usable in any place, like product placed in a refrigerator.
• Shrink sleeves are abrasion resistant. This quality of the sleeves helps during shipping of the products.
• The sleeves do not use adhesive and hence no sticky mess available on the container. Containers are reusable and the sleeve can be cleanly torn away.
• Re-branding of the products using shrink sleeves gives an exceptional edge in the marketing end.

At Anchor Printing, we take pride in offering our clients cut & stack labeling, pressure sensitive labels, roll-fed labeling, shrink sleeves as well as flexible packaging options. Contact us today at http://anchorprinting.com for all of your product label design, printing and packaging needs.

Custom Designed Shrink Sleeves

Custom designed shrink sleeves as we know are shrink wraps, are made of plastic or polyester film material. These are very much heat resistant and happen to be great label products. Moisture, friction they can easily encounter without losing their great durability.
Why Shrink Sleeves
This is an absolute necessity seeing from the point of view how we are using industrial products in our everyday lives. The shrink sleeves can generally be applied over, around the intended goods. Then they are heated either by using heated guns or are sent through shrink tunnel, for shrinking. So we can say it is kind of an overwrap that is done on various types of packaging. Cartons, beverage cans, boxes and pallet loads are few of the many products that cannot be completely done without shrink wraps being used. Not just industrial goods, shrink sleeves are many times used on book wraps, beverages, and pharmaceuticals.
The More Designed, the Better       
Shrink sleeves are manufactured in ways to give a great presentation. So, you can say the look and feel part in shrink sleeves happen to be of great importance. Be it a beverage container or your favorite water sipper, a great shrink sleeve can immediately draw attention to your thing in a jiffy. There are several manufacturers in the industry who cater to all kinds of your shrink sleeve needs. And they give 360 degree graphics coverage on all your containers and applications that you want to cater to your consumers for some great visibility. Presentation is precisely the reason that people use to go for custom designed shrink sleeves.
Using the Shrink Sleeves
As far as use of the shrink sleeves are concerned, they are absolutely many. These sleeves wrap buildings. Countries or regions affected by natural calamities use these sleeves in great amounts to cover rooftops post the powerful storms. For environmental containments too these can be used. They are largely used while removing environmental hazards like lead, asbestos etc. While buying CDs or DVDs most of you have noticed your favorite CDs, DVDs in these shrink sleeves. Foods such as some vegetables, meat, cheese, plants are often covered using shrink sleeves. Therefore, you can easily see how the use of shrink sleeves actually covers all the necessary areas of our lives.
Shrink sleeves as already mentioned before, come in various customised frames and they fit most of your containers of choice and can actually made to special shapes. The films that are used on the shrink sleeves are high-gloss OPS, PETG or PVC and they are equipped with the abilities to resist any kind of moisture and abrasion. The goods makers are sincerely concerned with the kinds of shrink sleeves they are using on their products. They believe the kick that they give to the products on shelves, the gloss, the presentation, is really important to make your products stand out from the rest.
At Anchor Printing, we take pride in offering our clients cut & stack labelling, pressure sensitive labels, roll-fed labelling, shrink sleeves as well as flexible packaging options. Contact us today at http://anchorprinting.com for all of your product label design, printing and packaging needs.