5 Types of Shrink Sleeve Labels for Your Product Packaging
An incredibly popular label choice among retailers and grocers alike, the shrink sleeve labels market is projected to reach a $27.9-billion market size by the year 2030—an impressive 6.4% compound annual growth rate during this forecast period. This projected growth is largely being fueled by greater demand from diverse end-use sectors worldwide, coupled with a heightened focus on providing innovative and customized products.
What are Shrink Sleeves?
A shrink sleeve is a type of product label that is designed to seamlessly and completely contort to the particular shape and size of a product container. These labels are often used to package retail items such as craft beer, grocery, personal care and sports nutrition products.
Printed with a flexographic or digital press that applies graphics to a sleeve interior, these labels are typically heat-shrunk to mold them to the container’s form for an adaptable and precise fit. In many cases, shrink sleeves are made from some form of plastic film or polyester substance. The adaptability of shrink labels allows for greater freedom and flexibility with packaging design.
Key Benefits of Using Shrink Sleeve Labels
There are a number of benefits to using shrink sleeve labels for your product packaging, drawing from their adaptability, convenience and unique ability to appeal to customers. Ranging from convenient removal for product recycling and tamper-evident seals, to greater flexibility with design and branding, below are several key benefits that are offered by shrink sleeves:
- Enhanced Adaptability and Fit: Shrink sleeves can fit a variety of container shapes and sizes, whether generic or specialty in nature. Their precise fit and ability to envelop the entire container enables a higher degree of creativity in the design of your product packaging.
- Prevents Tampering: The use of a tamper-evident shrink sleeve provides an added degree of security to your product packaging, making it easy for customers to spot any unwanted tampering. This builds consumer trust and protects a company should issues with tampering arise.
- Promotes Sustainability: Shrink sleeve labels made with green materials make products more sustainable by allowing for recycling or biodegradation. Additionally, without the need for an adhesive, the sleeves can be conveniently removed, allowing for the container to be easily recycled.
- Greater Durability: Because graphics are printed on the sleeve’s interior, shrink sleeves are highly durable and resistant to damage despite general wear and tear or exposure to moisture.
- Faster Production: The use of a digital press makes shrink sleeves fast and convenient to make, which enables businesses to produce them at a high volume during high-demand periods like the holiday season or unexpected spikes in product sales.
- Cost-Effective Solution: Shrink sleeve labels are incredibly cost effective, replacing two separate labels for both the front and back surfaces with just a single, wrap-around label that covers the entire container.
5 Popular Types of Shrink Sleeve Labels
As one of the most popular types of product packaging, shrink sleeve labels come in many different shapes and sizes depending on your application needs. Beyond their more general characteristics, each label type offers its own key features and benefits. Understanding the five key types of shrink sleeve labels will help you make the right selection for your project goals:
- Standard Shrink Sleeve
Standard shrink sleeve labels, also known as partial sleeve labels, will cover only part of the product packaging, but lack a tamper-evident seal to cover the cap. With the ability to be used for virtually any metal, glass or plastic container, these sleeves come with a full-length zippered perforation that makes products conveniently recyclable. When labeling different varieties of the same product, custom shrink sleeve labels can help reduce warehousing costs. For example, they allow your business to stock just one type of container with the ability to add different labels to that same container as needed.
- Full-Body Shrink Sleeve
As is implied by its name, the full-body shrink sleeve label covers the entire surface area of the product packaging, including the cap. The ability to showcase vibrant graphics and colors around the entire product means that businesses have the space and freedom to highlight their unique branding in full HD style. These sleeves come with a tamper-evident seal, which adds an element of consumer safety to their features. In addition, the option for a full-length zippered perforation provides for convenient label removal and product recycling.
- Tamper-Evident Neck Band
Tamper-evident neck bands, or shrink bands, are the smallest type of shrink sleeve label. They are applied around the cap of a container to produce a tamper-evident seal. In some cases, these shrink bands will include the use of zippered perforation. The purpose of the tamper-evident seal is to ensure consumer safety and security of purchase. Custom printing these shrink bands provides an additional branding opportunity by allowing businesses to showcase their logos, instructions or other graphics.
- Perforated Shrink Cap
Not only do tamper-evident shrink sleeves offer full, 360-degree product packaging, but they also provide a critical safety feature through perforated shrink caps that reveal unwanted tampering. This helps to maximize product quality and support the safety of your consumers.
- Multi-Pack Shrink Sleeves
With the ability to bundle together multiple items of the same package, multi-pack shrink sleeves provide several helpful benefits. These include running multi-pack promotions, customer savings through bulk purchasing and providing free samples of your products, such as through a “bonus gift with purchase” or bundling less popular items to promote faster sales.
These different types of shrink sleeve labels are designed to fit specific purposes and provide a variety of key benefits—from product security and consumer protection, to quick removal, product recycling and the option to bundle items. In addition, shrink sleeves allow businesses to highlight their branding in unique and aesthetically attractive ways. No matter which type of shrink sleeve label you choose, there are many available options to fit your packaging needs.
Want to Learn More About Our Shrink Sleeve Labels?
For tailored support, contact your regional customer service team:
Eastern Region
PartnerSupportEast@idimages.com
866-516-7300 (toll free)
Western Region
PartnerSupportWest@idimages.com
833-461-2950 (toll free)