Wholesale Polythene Bags: lead time
By The Velocity Wear Team
Printed polythene bags take 10 to 15 working days to produce from the moment artwork is approved, with delivery transit on top. That is two to three calendar weeks of production once weekends are removed. The date that matters to you is the approval date, not the day you send the enquiry, because nothing in the schedule starts moving until the file is signed off.
How long does a bag order take?
Budget 15 working days for production and treat 10 as the happy case. On top of that, add transit to wherever the bags are going; we deliver to the UK, USA and Europe, and the distance changes the tail rather than the build. A realistic total for a UK delivery is three to four weeks from approval, and planning to that number rather than the optimistic one is what keeps packaging off your critical path.
The build itself is not the variable part. Extrusion and print run to a schedule; what varies is how long the artwork spends going back and forth beforehand. Check the specification on the polythene bags page and browse the rest of the wholesale range at the same time, because ordering bags and garments together means one approval cycle rather than two.
What starts the clock?
Artwork approval, specifically your sign-off on the proof we send back. Before that point the job is a conversation. After it, the job is a slot. This distinction catches out buyers who count from the day they paid, then find the delivery date has moved because the proof sat unopened for a week in somebody's inbox.
The same principle applies across every product, and the reasons behind it are set out in understanding lead times: what delays a clothing order. The short version is that approval is the last point at which a change is cheap, so the schedule is measured from there deliberately.
When should the order go in?
Work backwards from the day you need to start packing. Subtract transit, subtract 15 working days, then subtract whatever your own approval process takes — a day if you decide alone, a fortnight if a committee is involved. If you also want a £150 sample first, and for a first bag order that is a sensible spend since it is credited against the bulk invoice, add a further round trip before the production clock starts at all.
For a seasonal peak, place the order a clear month before the volume arrives rather than when the current box runs low. Running out of packaging stops dispatch entirely, which is a more expensive failure than running out of any single garment size.
Can bags run alongside a garment order?
They can, and it is the efficient way to buy. Both sit in the same 10 to 15 working day window, so a combined order approved on the same day arrives together rather than staggered. If you are planning a launch around this, the approach in building a launch calendar that does not slip works for packaging and product alike.
The one thing to watch is that a combined order is only as fast as its slowest approval. If the garment artwork is settled and the bag artwork is not, approve them separately rather than holding both. Two deliveries a week apart beat one delivery two weeks late.
Watch the reorder point rather than the stock level. Work out how many bags a typical week consumes, multiply that by the four weeks a replacement run takes to arrive, and treat the result as the level at which the next order goes in. Warehouses that reorder when the shelf looks empty are permanently a fortnight short, and packaging is the one shortage that halts everything else. Writing the trigger number on the shelf itself works better than any calendar reminder.
