Christmas Bags

Christmas packaging

Buy from a wide range of Christmas packaging, including printed carrier bags and display bags now.

The history of Christmas

Christmas is a Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. It is celebrated by billions of people around the world, Christians and non-Christians alike, and is a widespread public holiday, usually on 25 December.

In the nativity story from the Christian Bible, three wise men from the East visited Jesus Christ and gave him gifts of gold, francincense and myrrh. This day, twelve days after Christmas Day, is known as the Epiphany and is celebrated on 6 January.

Gift giving and other Christmas traditions

Nowadays, people traditionally give gifts to friends and family on Christmas Day, the Epiphany or St Nicholas’ Day (6 December) in many European countries (see the section ‘St Nicholas and Father Christmas’).

Other Christmas traditions include the giving of Christmas cards, singing songs, eating traditional Christmas food (e.g. turkey, mince pies, chocolate coins), drinking traditional drinks (e.g. mulled wine, sherry), attending church or carol concerts and decorating rooms and outside buildings with various traditional items, including Christmas trees, holly, mistletoe, tinsel and lights.

Christmas and the retail industry

Christmas is the busiest time of the year for the retail industry. A 2012 survey found that consumers expected to spend an average of £445 on Christmas, with children expected to receive an average of £132 worth of presents (Source: Moneysupermarket.com).

Add to that the money spent on Christmas cards, decorations, Christmas parties and all of the other Christmas traditions, not to mention the excessive levels of food and drink consumed, and there is no doubt that Christmas is a good time to be a retailer.

The key for retailers at this time of year is to ensure that they maximise their earning potential and don’t allow customers to take their bulging Christmas wallets to the next superstore, shop, market stall, restaurant or bar.

As the economic significance of Christmas grows, the weeks and months leading up to Christmas become a more critical time for retailers and businesses to prepare themselves and give themselves the edge in an ultra-competitive marketplace.

Christmas packaging

One way of finding the competitive edge for your business is to make the most of all of the Christmas packaging that is available. People love Christmas and when doing Christmas shopping people love to feel Christmassy, so any way of bringing a Christmas feel to your regular retail surrounding is a good thing.

There are various ways of adding a touch of Christmas to your Christmas packaging. Here are just a few:

Christmas carrier bags - printed your way!

Q: At Christmas, what’s better for retailers than a carrier bag with a Christmas design on it?

A: A Christmas carrier bag with their company branding on it!

One way for retailers to make the most of the Christmas period is to provide their customers with carrier bags covered in a Christmas design, complete with their company logo, branding and/or advertising slogans.

A printed carrier bag service allows shops and other retailers to do just that, by getting their own carriers made-to-measure. Not only do personalised Christmas carrier bags show that your company loves Christmas but, as your customers parade around your shop with the bags you have given them, it gives you free advertising to the rest of those consumers desperate to part with their Christmas shopping budget.

Printed carrier bags are available in a range bag sizes and with a variety of handle styles, to give your customers just the type of Christmas carrier bag that they need.

Gift bags

Christmas is a time for giving. Presents are a huge part of the Christmas tradition nowadays and, of course, all of those presents aren’t going to wrap themselves.

One fantastic way to win customers over is to do their Christmas wrapping for them. Take a range of luxury gift bags - strong laminated paper carriers with a luxury rope handle - in a variety of colours and use these to maximise your product presentation at the counter and save your customers the hassle of wrapping all of their presents.

Display bags

Christmas is a competitive time for retailers, so you want your products to really stand out. What better way to do that than to make them sparkle with some crystal clear display bags?

Made from high clarity polypropylene, display bags are brilliant for making a range of lovely Christmas gifts - from sweets to champagne and flowers to luxury chocolates - leap off the shelves shouting ‘buy me!’

If you manufacture or sell greetings cards, then Christmas is a time that you’ll need to pull out all of the stops to make your cards stand out. To get your Christmas cards sparkling like the star on top of the Christmas tree, make sure they are wrapped in crystal clear polypropylene greeting card bags - and your days will be merry and bright!

Christmas mailing bags

Christmas shopping trends are changing. Whilst shops and superstores are still rammed into the run-up to Christmas, more and more people are choosing to do their Christmas shopping online.

If you are a specialist online retailer, or a regular retailer that does its share of mail order deliveries, then you need to make sure you are fully stocked up with mailing bags for the Christmas period.

Light, waterproof and fitted with an easy-pull integral sealing strip to make them simple to use, mailing bags are ideal for sending out lots of mail in a short space space of time, perfect for the run-up to Christmas. In fact, the only way to improve on them is to use your own personalised Christmas mailing bags.

Get your company name, logo and branding printed on the outside of your mailer and some useful ‘gift return’ information on the back. Complete it with some snowflakes, a snowman or some other lovely Christmas design and there you have it - a professional-looking parcel from a company that says ‘we mean business’ and ‘we love Christmas’ at the same time!

Where can I buy Christmas bags

Manufacturers and suppliers of Christmas bags include:

Discount Cellophane & Display Bags
Discountcellophanebags.co.uk is a division of Polybags specialising in cellophane bags and polypropylene products providing first class polypropylene products at competitive prices.
www.discountcellophanebags.co.uk

Carrier Bags
In conjunction with Polybags provides a big range of plastic carriers and paper bags. Also offering a custom printed carrier bags service if you need personalised carrier bags.
www.carrierbags.co

Printed Carrier Bags
Stand out from the crowd by getting your carrier bags customised with your company logo, brand design or a bespoke message using their personalised printed carrier bag service and let the world know your name.
www.printedcarrierbags.com

Discount Greetings Card Bags
Website providing a list of discount suppliers of greeting card bags, cellophane type, polypropylene bags. You will also find information about greeting card bags such as sizes types and materials used to manufacture display bags.
www.discountgreetingscardbags.co.uk

Research & Resources

For more detailed information about a variety of Christmas packaging, including how they are produced and the different types of Christmas carrier bags, gift bags and display packaging available, please visit:

Packaging Knowledge
Online magazine with news on the world of plastic packaging. Read articles and information about many types of Christmas packaging.
www.packagingknowledge.com

Plastic Bags
A free plastic packaging directory, that lists great websites with lots of information on Christmas packaging, including display bags and printed carrier bags.
www.plasticbags.uk.com

Goldstork
An interesting "best of the web" directory with lots of useful or unusual websites. Goldstork also offers a vault with only selected Christmas packaging websites, including some on greetings card bags and other retail display bags.
www.goldstork.com

St Nicholas and Father Christmas

St Nicholas was a bishop who lived in Asia Minor (now Turkey) in the fourth century AD. Stories of St Nicholas tell of a very rich man who liked to help the poor and bestowed gifts upon them in secret.

The patron saint of children, St Nicholas died on 6 December, which is why St Nicholas’ Day is celebrated on that day, and is one of the main reasons why people give gifts to each other at Christmas.

Stories of St Nicholas became unpopular in Europe in the 16th century, but children were used to receiving gifts at Christmas time, so St Nicholas became known as Father Christmas in the UK and Santa Claus in the United States of America.

This person continued to deliver presents to children on the night before Christmas and this tradition continues until this day, which is why Father Christmas remains a source of wonder to millions of children around the world.