What Is Shrink Wrap Packaging?

 Shrink wrap is an important packaging method, especially for retailing and shipping.

What is shrink wrap packaging

Shrink wrap packaging is to use shrink plastic film to tightly wrap products or packages outside by heating. The plastic film will shrink and cling tightly to the surface of the product or package to pack. 

What is heat shrink wrap film made of?

The materials used for heat shrink wrap are mainly various thermoplastic films. PVC plastic film has been the most used in shrink wrap before. But nowadays, with the market demand diversified, PVC shrink film gradually decreased in share, and many other heat shrink film materials such as PE, PP, PET, OPP, PVDC, POF and more multilayer co-extruded heat shrinkable films developed rapidly and became the mainstream of the market.

Advantages of shrink wrap packaging

There are many advantages of heat shrink wrap. That's why it gets so popular in retail packaging. Some of shrink wrap benefits are: (1) Fully show the packed item due to the high transparency of shrink plastic. (2) Items being shrink wrapped can be kept moisture-proof, and dust free. (3) Shrink wrap provides the products a certain cushioning and thus protect them from external impact. Especially when packaging fragile utensils, it can prevent them from flying when broken. (4) Offer some degree of tamper proof.

How to shrink wrap a box?

To shrink wrap goods, boxes or cartons, you need some kind of shrink wrap tunnel/machine as below. Of course, there are a wide variety of brands and models available.

But if you're about to shrink wrap odd items, or for home use, for example to shrink wrap shoes, then you can simply do it with the help of a hair dryer. In this case, you need to purchase heat shrink wrap bags of right size. Put your items into the heat shrink bag before blowing it with the dryer.

Difference between heat shrink wrap and stretch wrap packaging

(1) Shrink wrap is through the contraction of plastic film, while stretch wrap the expansion of  plastic film. They wrap just the opposite ways.

(2) Different in ways of application. Shrink wrap packaging generally can't be finished without the help of heat, while stretch wrap can be applied anywhere by stretching the film with bare hands (though there are stretch film wrapper available for industrial use).

(3) Different in plastic properties. Stretch film is soft and more flexible. But heat shrink wrap film, on the contrary, tends to be fragile.