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.