Christmas Ribbon Buying Tips

With the Christmas Ribbon Season starting we have been inundated over the past fortnight with pallets of stock arriving from all over Europe. For us the next four months prove to be the busiest period of our trading year as we fulfill orders for festive ribbons coming in to us from a wide variety of companies and clients.

There are a wide range of different ribbon styles that come into play at this time of year. Typically we see :

A raise in demand for ribbons with wired edges, as the name suggests these ribbons have a light wire that is woven into the edge of the product and runs down both edges of the ribbon. This enables the ribbon to be tied or twisted into various shapes which then retain their shape a lot easier due to the structure of the wire in the ribbon. A lot of the Ribbon from European manufacturers such as Kuny Ribbons, Shindo Ribbons and others will carry wire in a lot of their ranges as standard.

The other alternative to wire is what is known as a mono filament . This is a nylon cord that again is woven into the edge of the ribbon in the same way that the wire is. This resembles a thick fishing wire, the idea behind this is that it can be used in ribbon that is going to be exposed to moisture as it won’t rust. It also springs back when crushed unlike the wire which when crushed will stay crushed until manually reshaped. For this reason this option is becoming popular with cake makers and florists as it bows very well when tied and the loops hold their shape, even after being squashed in a box.

We have also been shown a lot of mini/gift sized reels of ribbon which people market for the Christmas trade. This often will only have 3 metres of ribbon on , some will have 5m. Whilst these can seem very attractive, if you work out the cost of the ribbon by the metre and then compare it to the cost of the ribbon by the metre on a normal 20m reel you will generally find out that the small reel works out to be very expensive. People quite often think that they are not going to use much ribbon for general gift wrapping, however bear in mind this useful equation.

When wrapping a box and finishing it with a bow on top you need to allow enough ribbon for this to be done out of one length. The general equation we suggest is to take the length of the longest side of the box that you are going to wrap and then times this length by four. This should then give you a long enough ribbon to go around the box both ways and then finish on the top with a bow.

So a box measuring 80cm along its longest edge will take 4 x 80cm of ribbon to wrap, this equates to 320cm or 3.2m of ribbon. It is for this reason that we do not stock very many styles of ribbons on small ribbons and warn people to be aware and work out their needs before purchasing what might at first glance seem a bargain.

Checked and Gingham Ribbons are also a favourite during the seasonal period, especially red. These ribbons work well for a wide range of uses and in the main are woven rather then printed – this means that the pattern is visible on both sides of the ribbon making it a lot more versatile. Over recent years there have been a lot of clever variations on this theme such as Rustic Tartan by Berisfords Ribbons which combines the look of a Tartan with simplicity of the Gingham. The benefit with the checked ribbons is that they contain two colours and as such are not as solid looking as the Satin's as a result they tend to go with more colour schemes and lend themselves well to gift wrapping.

Another tip worth bearing in mind is to look at the sale sections. A lot of manufacturers will be left with Christmas Ribbon from the previous season that they are always keen to get rid of so that it does not effect their current ranges and stocks. As a result you will find that a lot of wholesalers and retailers will quite often have a wide range of attractive festive ribbons in stock in their clearance sections at this time of year. But a word of warning, if you see something that you like purchase it quickly as these stocks tend to be limited and get snapped up by larger buyers looking to save budgets. To put this into perspective we currently have over 5,000 reels that we have just moved across to our sale section, however we anticipate that these will clear within the next three weeks!

We hope that this brief insight into our thoughts on Christmas ribbon buying is of help. If you have any questions or need any further information then please feel free to contact us at anytime on 01691 780416 or e mail: sales@simplyribbons.com