Personalised Plastic Bags as Effective as Billboards

With the retail environment as tight as it is at the present time, and consumers refusing to spend, business owners are frantically searching for any marketing tools that will bring more customers through the doors. Whether they are selling groceries, personal care products, clothing, accessories, or anything else that can be carried out of the shop in a bag, they are at the end of their arsenal of tricks to make shoppers buy. They have discounted, had multiple sales in various guises, hammered the “buy two – get the second one for half price” and other equally creative offers, and ask “what now?”

Sometimes the simplest and most obvious strategies are the ones that remain untapped, probably because they are too obvious in an environment where loyalty programs, competitions and other more complex marketing methods are prominent. It is easy to dismiss the tried and proven marketing tools like plastic bags printed with retailer logos, when everyone is searching for a magic formula.

For years, plastic bags and their upmarket cousins, printed canvas bags, have been the staple of the retailing sector, keeping purchases secure and undamaged in transit until they can be unpacked and admired at home. By providing these particular benefits to consumers, retailers guaranteed that by printing their advertising on the bags, their message would be seen on hundreds of trains, buses and in some cities, trams as the goods made their way from the shopping centres to the suburbs.

However, in these brave new times of on-line shopping and “bring-your-own” bags to the supermarket to save costs, some retailers have lost sight of the geographic area that personalised plastic and printed canvas bags can cover. These bags can be manufactured locally by companies with their own design teams who can assist small retailers without the backing of franchise marketing, to create a brand presence unique to their business.

Both plastic and printed canvas bags come in a range of colours that can be matched to any existing branding. By using bio-degradable materials in the manufacturing process, environmentally conscious store owners can have a clear conscious that when their bags are eventually discarded, they will not remain in land fill for generations. The canvas bags are especially suitable for retailers that focus their branding on environmental issues, and the printing on the bags can highlight not only the store name but the fact that they are reusable. Even food packaging, with a little imagination, can get the personalised treatment with the help of a clever design team.

In this difficult retail environment, every trick in the marketing book needs to be used to boost consumer spending. The message here is that by all means, use all the cool, new ways to gain consumer attention, but remember that the humble plastic bag swinging in the hand of a happy shopper can still pique desire.