How to Use Your Very Own Custom Plastic Shopping Bags

Whether you’re at the grocery store or picking up a goody bag at the end of a company party, you’re already familiar with the idea of plastic bags. Custom plastic shopping bags are an affordable and easy solution for many brands to showcase their style and provide convenient carry-outs for their customers.  

But when is the best time to use them, and how? What makes a design most effective for different uses? Our tips will help you get your branding in the bag. There are a lot of ways to customize and use plastic bags for businesses of all sizes, and these are some tips to help get you started. 

How to Effectively Design and Use Custom Plastic Shopping Bags

Retail

If you’re in the retail business, then you know that plastic shopping bags are an essential part of customer purchases. However, these promotional bags can also be used as an essential part of your marketing plan as well. Everywhere a customer goes carrying your bags with your custom logo printed on the side, you’re getting free advertising.  

That being said, your customer may not always want to advertise exactly what they bought. Solid colored and frosted plastic shopping bags with handles are ideal for clothing, makeup, and pharmaceutical companies, as they provide a bright contrasting background for the logo while keeping customer purchases private. However, floral or antique shops would do better to display purchases with clear and lightly colored die cut bags to accentuate their beautiful products. 

Food

Custom plastic takeout bags are also essentials for restaurants, even those who don’t specialize in takeout. Visual appeal is an important part of what draws customers to their food and having colorful printed plastic bags for your business actually helps make the food inside seem even more desirable. 

You want your bag to reflect the qualities your customers look for in a good restaurant. For a clean, simple, and tasteful design, go for a simple die cut handle plastic bag with the logo displayed on the side. That empty space around the logo gives a sense of cleanliness. Also, use colors related to your food style, such as green for organic, red or yellow for fast food, and pastel pink or blue for sweets. 

Party

If you’re hosting a large party, it’s best not to send guests home empty-handed. Corporate parties or company fundraisers are generally expected to have goody bags available for guests with customized company pens and other memorabilia included. You can go simple with these or make the bag itself a fun gift with a large print picture on the side. 

With corporate goody bags, pick one or two larger items like custom headphones, a t-shirt, or a towel with the company logo or a custom icon based on the party to accompany a few smaller items like pens or notepads. Guests will appreciate these as luxury gifts and it will leave them with a good impression of the company’s generosity. 

Promotion

If your company sets up displays at trade shows and industry conferences, you’ll want to have smaller promotional items to offer as many people as possible. Unlike with company parties, it’s best to offer a smaller die cut handle plastic bags with the company logo printed on pens and notepads that can easily be tucked into your guest’s pocket for the duration of the conference or trade show.  

Printed plastic bags for businesses offer potential customers something to carry your promotional items while the bag acts as a promotional item as well. Because promotion is your goal in this case, solid-colored bags are ideal as they provide a bold background to your custom print logo. 

When selecting custom plastic shopping bags, keep in mind the function of the bag in regard to the design. Whether your bags should be opaque or not depends greatly on whether you want the products inside to catch the eye or the logo printed on the front. There are a large variety of custom plastic bags  and custom clear bags to choose from with different styles in size, shape, and color to match your industry and where you plan to use them.