“Give ‘em the razor, sell ‘em the blades,” a quote attributed to King Camp Gillette of the Gillette razor company, is an example of a strategy driven by revenue through the sale of consumables. But there are numerous other examples from inkjet printers, to mobile phones and coffee K-Cups.

While this is a legitimate strategy, it is most profitable when the company supplying the consumable can remain the sole source provider. When that is the case, prices and profit margin can be kept artificially high and the end user has no choice but to keep coming back for more.

Today, for cut and stack label manufacturers this scenario is playing itself out with banding film which is used to band stacks of labels in specific counts as they exit the guillotine station.

In the labeling world, approximately 70 percent of all labels are cut and stack with the rest being pressure sensitive. Generally speaking, cut and stack labels are most prevalent in the food, beverage and household product industries.

Cut and Stack Labels are printed on large sheet or rollfed printing presses. After printing, label sheets are either diecut into their desired shapes or, more typically, cut into their individual rectangular shapes and stacked. Film banding machines are then used to wrap each stack, in a specific count.

Because cut and stack labels are usually used for high volume production, many label manufacturers operate multiple inline film banding machines, along with separate self-standing units to reapply bands when they break or for smaller runs and overflow.

The film banding equipment field is dominated by overseas manufacturing companies, often sold through a domestic outlet. As a result, those that invest in such equipment continue to purchase the film used from the domestic source, unaware that less expensive alternatives exist. This is said to create a virtual monopoly on pricing.

The “other” type of banding
Google the word “banding” and many of the search results are sure to be related to the industrial steel, poly and polyester bands used to secure pallets or other boxed goods for shipping. 

Less well known is the “other” type of banding – poly film.

At first glance, rolls of film and paper banding might be considered a commodity product. Available in a variety of roll sizes in clear or colored, these consumables appear to be standard items that could be supplied by just about any conventional packaging supply house. However, this is not the case. Most packaging supply distributors offer conventional packaging materials (stretch film, bubble, foam, corrugated, Jan/San products, etc.), but don’t have the converting capabilities to provide these films or paper, so they don’t offer them.

A domestic source in the US
Unlike overseas suppliers, which can take weeks of lead-time to restock banding supplies including production and shipping, a domestic source can ship standard stock the same day and most special stock requirements within a few days. 

One such US-based banding materials supplier is Pacific Packaging, a Wilmington, MA-based film and paper manufacturer, distributor and converter. The company offers a variety of banding materials slit to the required widths that work on automatic and self-standing banding equipment from ATS, Felins, Wexler, Blumer USA, BandAll, MBO, Heidelberg and Akebono, among others. Pacific is also an authorized distributor of the Akebono line of banding equipment. 

“A domestic supplier has other advantageous programs as well,” says Magdi Bichay, general manager of Specialty Products at Pacific Packaging. “Stable pricing can be further achieved with contracted blanket orders and dated deliveries for up to one year. This ensures meeting budgetary forecasts. Since consumables must be continually ordered, the savings go directly to the bottom line.”

Bichay says there tends to be a lack of awareness that there are suitable domestic, third-party suppliers. “Pacific Packaging supplies free banding samples for evaluation on customers’ banding equipment, and in many cases we will visit customers in person for on-site testing and evaluation,” he says.

One strategy being employed by Pacific Packaging Products, for example, is to offer consignment programs that allow the customer to only pay for the material they use on a monthly basis. This also allows inventory and payment to be managed electronically. “Consignment allows the customer to have 60-90 day supply in their warehouse,” Bichay says. “Should they suddenly get busy, the materials are readily available at their disposal. Furthermore, there are considerable transportation savings shipping 60-90 days compared to monthly shipments.”