Nothing is lost between the supplier's warehouse and the sewing floor; the loss happens the moment a bag is opened — torn film, labels spilling, quantities miscounted, half a bag that never returns to stock. Inner packing (roll or bundle, quantity per bag, what the bag says) looks like the least important line on a trims specification, yet it sets how many times a day the line has to cut, count and search.
This guide works through four parts — loading format, bag labelling, unpacking loss and line-side delivery — and closes with an inner-packing table you can drop straight into a purchase order.
1. The Three Things Inner Packing Really Affects
Unpacking frequency, counting accuracy and the space taken at the line. A line finishing 3,000 garments a day needs 3,000 neck labels daily: at 500 per bag that is six bags a day, at 100 per bag it is thirty. Opening a bag is cheap; re-counting, re-locating and re-sealing after every opening is not.
- Unpacking frequency: daily usage ÷ quantity per bag. Any spec above twenty openings deserves its own packing change
- Counting: small bundles are fast and accurate; large bags can only be sampled or weighed, and errors are hard to trace
- Line-side space: shelf heights are fixed, and the bigger the bag the harder it is to place — so it ends up on the floor
2. Choosing Between Rolls, Bundles and Flat Stacks
Rolls suit continuous-feed trims: woven labels, tape, care labels, self-adhesive labels. Bundles suit flat rigid pieces: hang tags, paper cards, small stickers. Flat stacks suit anything that distorts: foil-stamped tags, heavy card, odd-shaped die cuts — interleave a sheet of paper every 50 to 100 pieces so the edges do not press marks into each other.
| Trim | Typical format | Quantity per unit | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Woven labels | Roll | 100–200 yards per roll | Core diameter must match the feed stand or the roll jumps |
| Care labels | Roll or flat stack | 1,000–2,000 per roll; 500 per bundle when stacked | Coated labels block when stacked — interleave release paper |
| Hang tags | Bundle | 100–500 per bundle | Do not over-tighten the tie — edge marks show badly after lamination |
| Self-adhesive labels | Roll | 500–1,000 per roll | Rolls stay cleaner than stacks but crush easily |
| Foil-stamped and embossed tags | Flat stack with interleaving | 50–100 per stack | Foil hates abrasion; interleaving prevents half the reprints |
3. Six Fields on the Inner Bag Label So Reorders Never Mix Batches
Item name, style or work-order number, size, colour, quantity and production batch. The first five are for the line; the sixth is for quality and for the reorder. Batch mixing rarely involves anything dramatic: half a bag left from the last order sits on the same shelf as the new delivery, half a shade apart, invisible to the eye until it is sewn into garments.
4. Unpacking Loss: Bundle Size Matters More Than Film Thickness
A thicker film does reduce tearing, but the real loss comes from exposure after opening: tags warp with humidity, woven labels collect dust, adhesive picks up oil from hands. Splitting a 1,000-piece bundle into 100-piece bundles keeps the unused stock sealed and cuts the loss — at the cost of packing labour and more film. A few hundred per bundle is usually the balance point; the deciding factor is how much the line loads at once.
The tool matters too. Cut a bag open down the middle with scissors and it never closes again; a bag with a tear notch or a zip can be reopened. The notch must run along the short side of the mouth to tear straight — notches placed down the body tear crooked eight times out of ten.
5. Line-Side Delivery: Size the Unit to the Line Rate
A bigger delivery unit is not automatically easier. Pieces per garment times output per shift gives the shift requirement; the unit should be roughly half a shift or a full shift. Anything beyond that sits on the shelf all day and occupies an extra tote. In mixed-style production the unit must also split by style, or the whole bag goes back to the store at changeover and is re-issued the next morning.
One more detail gets missed: different colours of the same item must go in separate bags. Combined packing saves film, but then colour separation happens on the floor — and one mistake there turns into a whole run of rework in the wrong shade, which costs far more than the bags saved.
6. Receiving Counts: Weigh and Spot-Check
Rolled woven and care labels do not need counting piece by piece. Weigh: take three rolls, average the weight, convert total weight into total pieces, and keep the error under 0.5%; then measure two rolls to cross-check length or count. Bundled tags are spot-counted: two bundles per carton, multiplied by the bundle count. Both methods belong in the packing spec, or every delivery restarts the same argument about how to count.
Related Articles
- Trims FAQ: all articles
- Trims Order Guide: Specs, Colour, Quantity and Acceptance
- Trims Kitting Guide: Piece-Level Sets and Line-Side Delivery
- Packing Trims into Cartons and Containers
- Trim Quantity Units: Pieces, Yards, Dozens and Gross
Want inner packing designed around your line rate? Send daily output, pieces per garment and shelf dimensions, and we will set the roll or bundle quantity around how your operators actually load, confirming the bag label at sampling. Sampling 3–7 days, bulk 10–25 days.
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