Poly Bubble Mailers or Kraft Bubble Mailers—Which is the Smarter Choice?

So you are looking to switch from cardboard boxes to bubble mailers on some of your items.

Dimensional weight costs are rising; it makes complete sense.

However, you are not sure what type of bubble mailer should you use: poly or Kraft?

To be honest, there’s no one definite answer to this. Both can be great and be not so great for different packaging and shipment needs. As such, which bubble mailer best serves your needs, is what we believe you should be looking at. This is the only way you’ll be able to make the right choice—the smarter choice.

For instance, let’s take the example of the color and printing performance of the two bubble mailers. Kraft, since it’s made of paper, provides that natural look which poly bubble mailer fails to. However, the color and printing performance of poly bubble mailers is far superior to Kraft bubble mailers. The colors when reproduced on Kraft bubble mailers are slightly under-toned; with poly, they are vibrant and bright.

So if you are really into branding and consider it truly important—wanting your logo and company’s color to look impressive on the packaging—then you are better off using poly bubble mailers.

Of course, color and printing is not the only thing to consider when choosing a packaging material. There are many other, and arguably more important things to factor in as well.

You should look at what type of item you want to package. Since Kraft bubble mailer is basically paper, glued to a bubble wrap, it is rigid. It does not conform well to odd shapes. On the other hand, poly bubble mailer is plastic, hence more flexible. It can easily accommodate different items.

But this flexibility of a poly bubble mailer comes at a cost: it is not as strong as a Kraft bubble mailer, so it does not provide the same level of impactprotection that Kraft does.

Against moisture though, poly bubble mailer shows a superior performance. 

If you consider the shipment cost, both provide significant savings in comparison to other packaging materials. However, poly bubble mailer slightly edges in this department. Because it is flexible and not rigid, you can stack greater number of poly-packaged products onto a pellet than Kraft-packaged products.

Greater stacking means less space and hence, more savings.

In terms of ease of usability, we would say it depends on which supplier you are working with. Some suppliers supply poly bubble mailers that are easier to open, while others design Kraft bubble mailers with higher ease of usability. At PremiumVials, both our poly and Kraft bubble mailers are fairly easy to use.