Stuck on You

"The world of custom printed tags and labels is alive and well," he commented.

The custom tag and label business is thriving, and the future continues to appear promising.

Several things will become important in the next 10 years.

"[An] increase in materials available to use, especially films," Schmidt said. "The environment will become more important. The process of manufacturing will be scrutinized, but clients want the product packaging on the retail shelf to be environmentally friendly, also. [In addition,] speed to market will continue to be important, as will just-in-time short runs. The ability to produce variable four-color 
labels on a variety of substrates will be required."

Labels and tags may have seemed unscathed by the flatlining economy, but both Western States and Badger were impacted.

"We re-structured ourselves to survive the downturn as well as prosper as our nation lifts itself from recession," Greg Retzer, Western States national sales manager, explained. "Order sizes were reduced on some larger quantity orders to decrease inventory and increase order cycles. We have had to focus on quality and short-run speed-to-market and get better at it."

Rita Horstmeier, sales/marketing manager for Badger Tag & Label, said the company was definitely affected by the economic downturn in 2009.

"We were fortunate enough, though, that our business rebounded quite nicely through 2010. We have found that during that time we didn't necessarily lose our customer base, we were simply part of a vicious circle of a business slow down. As we went through 2010, many of our customers reached the point for re-orders and also saw the need to start new projects. We also helped our customers during this time by working with them to look at their current needs and find ways to improve how they use various tags and labels," she stated.