Custom Self-Adhesive Tape

Self-adhesive tape, also known as stick tape or self-stick tape, is a type of tape that has a pressure-sensitive adhesive coated on one or both sides of a backing material, often paper. This allows it to stick without the need for heat or other activators like solvents, making it easy to apply, versatile and cost-effective.

Self-adhesive is the fastest and easiest way to seal your packaging and brand it at the same time. Whilst this can give your brand a boost on any package, it’s especially effective for unbranded packaging, like a plain shipping box. And with 3-colour printing, you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to your tape design. Branding your packaging is essential to stand out from the competition and deliver a memorable unboxing experience.

As self-adhesive tape sticks to almost any packaging material, it’s also more versatile than other packaging tapes, like gummed tape which can only stick to paper packaging. For your team, that means one less SKU to manage, order and store, as well as cost savings from buying larger quantities of one type of personalised tape. Self-adhesive tape can also be applied with standard tape dispensers, which are cheaper than gummed tape dispensers. If you’re packaging large order volumes or simply have a large fulfilment team, this can make a big difference to packaging costs and times.

Here’s how to choose the right self-adhesive tape for your brand:

1. Material: choose either brown kraft paper or white kraft paper. Brown kraft paper is unbleached, which makes it more sustainable than white kraft paper. If sustainability is your top priority, we recommend brown kraft paper. As it’s brown though, colours in your packaging tape design or artwork will appear more muted. If colour reproduction and branding are your top priorities, we recommend white kraft paper.

2. Width: choose either 48mm or 72mm. 72mm tape is stronger than 48mm but uses more material, making it slightly more expensive and less sustainable. If you’re shipping heavy items, we recommend 72mm. Both widths come in rolls of 50m long.

After this, you can also choose how many print colours you want on your personalised packing tape. This should be determined by your artwork. For example, if you want to print a one-colour logo on a solid colour background, you can choose two print colours. You can choose between one and three print colours (ideal for multi-coloured designs) or leave your custom tape blank. This is the most sustainable option when combined with brown kraft paper.

Self-adhesive tape is not recyclable on its own as it uses a laminated layer to secure any ink. To avoid contaminating waste streams, dispose of it with general waste.

If your self-adhesive tape is stuck to recyclable packaging, however, it can be recycled. The only condition is that the weight of the tape is less than 20% of the total package weight.

We validate all supplier claims and third-party certifications such as ISO, BRC and FSC. And we ensure suppliers adhere to UK and EU laws on chemicals and product components, like UK REACH. This allows businesses to confidently buy high-quality products that align with a net-zero trajectory.

Look for our FSC® certified products.

We visit and vet every supplier we work with. We use our code of conduct to do this, which defines what we consider to be ethical working conditions. To work with Sourceful, suppliers and their manufacturing sites must meet this code. We then review their practices every year.

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Every order from our suppliers undergoes a quality inspection process before it’s shipped. Any order that fails quality inspection is returned to the manufacturer or reproduced immediately.

For orders manufactured internationally (outside the UK) we follow the Acceptable Quality Limit (AQL) method defined by ISO standards in ISO 2859 - 1.

For domestic orders manufactured in the UK we align supplier quality control processes with our own, performing spot checks on the supplier’s products from each lot throughout the year.

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