(2) Mold cost
If a customer wants to apply the in-mold label to its own product, it should first pay a handsome amount of money for the mold cost to the bottle blowing enterprise, and then pay the in-mold label cost. Customers without an extraordinary economic strength usually can not afford these two items of expenses. Therefore, for ordinary products, the first choice for the customer is the ordinary paper label or film label. The in-mold label is only considered to be suitable for high added-value or competitive products.
(3) Intrinsic characteristics of the product
For low added-value products, or products of multiple batches and small batch size, the in-mold label will bring about a very high price which can not be afforded by the customer. But for high added-value product, it is a fairly good choice. Currently, owing to the soaring price of petroleum and a large output, some product, more specifically, lubricating oil, has been able to employ the in-mold label with a lower cost than any other product. The cost of the in-mold label is about 150% to 200% of the common labels of the same kind.
In addition, other industries, especially daily chemical industry, feature the products of small batch size and brand variety, and furthermore, packaging is subject to frequent change. This has brought about difficulties in the mass application of the in-mold label, and thus decelerated its development. The price of the cosmetics in-mold label is 200% of that of the pressure-sensitive label. Hot-printing will further increase the price of the in-mold label.
2. On-demand manufacturing
The container with the in-mold label is often manufactured on demand. In the case of the pressure-sensitive label, different labels can be adhered to the containers with the same appearance so as to meet different requirements. However, the bottle to which the in-mold label is applied is customized; therefore it is not suitable for the other labels. Insufficient output can not cover market demand, while excessive output will cause waste of resources. But in most cases, the manufacture prefers to offer an excessive supply for fear of failure to meet market demand, which has undoubtedly increased risk and cost.
3. Production and processing
In-mold label printing falls into front surface printing, the same category as common film printing. Just like pressure-sensitive printing, it needs printing and mold cutting. The difference lies in that in-mold label raw materials have no padding paper. After mold cutting, labels are divided into independent parts without the connection of the padding paper. That is to say, the in-mold label has the same structure and process as the traditional paper label for beer.
In the present domestic market, those qualified and specialized printing presses have a waste product rate over 20% during the production of the in-mold label. Some newcomers to this industry may have a waste product rate as high as 40%. This is attributed to the following reasons:
(1) The complicated label pattern designed by the user has resulted in the increase of waste product rate.
The in-mold label is a high-end product, and accordingly, a high-end design will be adopted. Some cosmetics, in particular, integrate the processes such as four-color registration, special color printing, hot-printing, glazing etc. The complicated processes and complex work flow have led to the rise of waste product rate.
(2) A lot of waste products arise from the processing work.
Currently, most of the in-mold labels are printed and glazed by the rotary printing press. Mold cutting and hot-printing are finished by the platen mold cutter and label printing press respectively. The two equipments work with different principles, exerting different tensions on the raw materials that are being processed. Therefore, some waste products will come into being during transformation process.
(3) The user or the bottle blowing mill is too critical with the quality of the in-mold label.
Color difference and registration are common problems arising from label processing, and this unexceptionally happens to the in-mold label. Slight color difference, registration error over 0.2mm and small white spots on the surface are all regarded as the properties of the waste product. Therefore, it is no wonder that waste product will constitute 20% of the finished labels. It is a pity to see those eliminated labels. If the acceptance criterion can be slightly relaxed, a sharp decrease will be seen in waste product rate, thus reducing the waste of a large quantity of precious resources.
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