Ordering Custom and Promotional Bags

A guide to ordering reusable promotional bags for your conference, event or business.

How many bags would you like?

1. 500 or more

Do you have a long enough lead time? 3-4 months is often required on the overseas service to cover planning, manufacture and shipping, especially as we head towards Christmas.

If you have plenty of time, great news, you have total control over your design, and we can have your bag custom made on our overseas service. See what your options are below.

If you don’t have that long, no problem, we have plenty of jute and cotton bags in stock for you to choose from on a short turnaround with our local print service.

2. Under 500

If you’re looking for a smaller quantity and/or a quick turnaround of 1-2 weeks, you’ll need to choose from the bags we have in stock.

Ordering Custom Bags on the overseas service

You’ll need to think about what your bag is for, what will go in it, what your budget is and where you stand on environmental issues. Is it a conference bag? or a market bag? or a branded bag for your business?

Here is some info to help you choose the specification for your bags.

1. Size of bag – our most popular jute bag size is 43 x 34 x 20cm which is a large shopping bag size. This will be a multipurpose bag that gets used a lot by the recipient and ultimately keeps your branding & logo out there for longer. If you would like to keep the budget down, you can tailor your bag size to suit your exact needs. You may need a small gift bag to package your products. Let us know the height, width and gusset measurements required.
2. Material – jute is currently the most popular choice for reusable bags because it is the most environmentally friendly readily available fibre. Here’s a quick summary for jute, cotton and Juco.
3. Jute, most environmentally friendly, strong, organic, quite coarse material. There are two grades available to suit your budget, we always quote the best quality jute with the tighter 14x15 weave. However, if you are on a tight budget we can offer the 13x13 weave as an alternative.
4. Cotton, finer texture, better for very detailed print, foldable, although lots of processing involved in production so organic cotton is best. Different grades of cotton are available from thin 110gsm up to a heavy cotton canvas 310gsm.
5. Juco, a blend of jute and cotton gives a more refined bag but at a slightly higher cost.
6. Colour – natural colour jute or cotton is the most cost effective but for a little extra and depending on your quantity you can have dyed material, either for all of the bag or just the gussets.
7. Handles – our preferred handles are padded cotton. These are comfortable in the hand, especially for a larger bag that may carry some weight. However, there is a choice of padded cotton, flat cotton, flat jute, cotton webbing or cane. For smaller lightweight bags however, the padded handles are not suitable, and a flat handle works best. Also, to think about is the length, for an arm’s length tote bag a 38cm handle is fine, for over the shoulder at least 50cm is best. Depending on your bag design you may want a long shoulder strap instead. Handles can be dyed to match the bag or your branding.
8. Lining – for jute there are 3 choices, Unlined, PP and LDPE. For practicality having a lining may be a good idea. It gives the bag strength; it can be wiped clean and a lined bag will stand up on it’s own. PP is a polypropylene which never breaks down and LDPE is a low-density polyethylene, slightly better for the environment as it does break down but at the end of the day it is still particles of plastic that never go away. Although lined bags still contain plastic, they last so long that they prevent many other plastic bags needing to be used. We have seen bags still in circulation that we supplied 6-7 years ago. If you are looking for a biodegradable reusable bag, our unlined jute in either stiffened or naturally soft jute will be prefect for you and is 100% biodegradable. You can’t get a more eco-friendly bag than that! Cotton bags are generally unlined anyway so no choices to make there. Juco can be lined or unlined.
9. Sustainability – as mentioned, jute is the best fibre and an unlined bag is 100% biodegradable. If you choose to have a barcode swingtag it will be attached with jute twine rather than a plastic loop. Our manufacturers are SEDEX registered which holds them accountable for their own sustainability.
10. Other specification – if you have a particular use for your bag there may be other requirements that we can help with. For example, Library Bags last longer with a hard base inserted and can have a small pocket for a library card. A sample bag that you leave with a customer such as carpet sample bags, can have a pvc pocket on the outside for a business card. Whatever you need to make your bag perfect, just ask.
11. Printing – we can supply unbranded bags or have them printed for you. If they are printed the cost will depend on how many colours and which locations. You can have print on the front, back, and in the gussets. With overseas printing the advantage is that the printing is done before the stitching which means that your print area is not restricted. You may choose to have a logo style print in the middle or a design that covers the whole bag, right up to and under the seams. The usual print process is screen printing where each colour has a template made and the layer of colour is printed separately. If you are looking for an all over print design, it may be better to have a digital print direct to the fabric. Colours on the digital printing are a little more muted than screen print.
12. Swing tag – you can choose to have a barcoded or just informational swing tag on your bags.
13. Deadlines – we give an estimated turnaround of 12 -14 weeks. However, we are not able to guarantee a delivery date due to the many circumstances outside our control that can affect shipping and delivery. Mother nature can play havoc with timing, monsoon rains affect loading, missed connections, we even had a crane fall off a ship after sailing causing a delay. Rest assured, we do our utmost to deliver your bags as quickly as possible.
14. Artwork – all artwork should be supplied to us in high res format .PDF/.ai etc with pantone colour codes advised.
15. Quote request – you can send your quote request through our website or just email to info@simplyjute.co.nz

Ordering Custom Bags on the local print service

1. Specification - the specification of your bag will be determined by those we have in stock at the time.
2. Printing – again the cost will depend on how many colours and which locations. You can have print on the front, back, and in the gussets. With local printing the the bag is already made up when it goes to print so your print area can only go up to approx. 2cm from the seams all the way round. The usual print process is screen printing but there is an option for a digital heat pressed transfer print.
3. Swing tags – all our stock bags have a barcoded swing tag.
4. Deadlines – let us know your deadline, local printing is usually completed and delivered within 1-2 weeks.
5. Artwork – all artwork should be supplied to us in high res format .PDF/.ai etc with pantone colour codes advised.
6. Quote request – you can send your quote request through our website or just email to info@simplyjute.co.nz

We hope that has answered all your questions but if not, don’t hesitate to give us a call on 0800 225558. We are happy to have a chat anytime and can do free mock ups with your artwork so you can see how your bag might look. From the team at Simply Jute, we look forward to working with you to create your perfect bag.