Custom swing tags printed in full colour

A custom swing tag is the last thing a customer reads before they decide. It carries your price, your size, your barcode and, if you use it properly, the reason someone should pay what you are asking.

Super Label Store prints custom swing tags and clothing tags in full colour on 300 gsm solid matt board, in a single standard size of 51 x 78 mm. Print one side or both. Add a cord or leave it off. Order from 100 tags for £49 and download a free proof at actual size before anything goes to press.

Swing tags, hang tags or swing tickets

They are the same product under different names. Swing tag and swing ticket are the usual terms in the UK and Australia, hang tag is the American word, and retail tags, merchandise tags and hanger tags all describe the same card once it is on a rail. Super Label Store prints all of them on the same 300 gsm matt board, in one standard size, from 100 pieces per design.

What goes on a swing tag

Most brands use the front for identity and the back for information. If you are selling into retail or wholesale rather than direct to consumer, the back is not optional, because a buyer will ask for it.

In short: brand and size on the front, barcode and detail on the back, printed on 300 gsm matt board at 51 x 78 mm from 100 tags at £49.

One thing worth being clear about: a swing tag is removed before the garment is worn, so it is not the right home for the fibre composition you are required to give. That belongs on a sewn-in label. Our satin care labels cover that side of it.

Specifications

Designing for the size

51 x 78 mm sits in the standard range for clothing swing tags, large enough to be read across a shop floor and small enough not to swamp a folded garment or get in the way on a rail.

• Keep the top clear. The drill hole centre sits 8 mm from the top edge. Anything you place in that band will be punched through or crowded by the cord.
• Stay inside the safe area. The design tool shows a dashed guide. Text or logos outside it risk being trimmed, since no two sheets cut in exactly the same place.
• Decide early whether you need the back. Double sided costs slightly more, but it is the difference between a price tag and a piece of packaging. If you need a barcode, you need the back.

Barcodes and QR codes

If you are going into retail or wholesale, the barcode on the swing tag is what gets you through the door. Two practical points.

Print barcodes as pure black on a white background at the largest size your layout allows, and leave clear space either side. Coloured, reversed or shrunken barcodes are the single most common reason a tag fails at the till.

Then test it. Your free proof prints at scale 1:1, so you can print the sheet, scan the barcode and scan the QR code with a phone before you commit to a run of a thousand. This takes two minutes and it is the cheapest quality check available to you.

Custom price tags

A custom price tag is a swing tag with the price printed on it. Super Label Store prints clothing price tags on the same 300 gsm matt board as every other tag, in one standard size of 51 x 78 mm, from 100 pieces for £49.

The decision worth making before you order is whether the price belongs on the tag at all.

• Print the price. The tag reads as considered rather than improvised, and there is nothing to peel off between the stockroom and the shop floor. The cost is flexibility. A printed price ties that tag to one price, one currency and one season.
• Leave it off. You keep the same branded tag across seasons, channels and markets, and add the price with a sticker or a pricing gun label. This is what most brands settle on once they sell in more than one place.
• Print a panel for it. Print everything else and leave a clean rectangle sized for a standard price sticker. You get branded price tags that still work as sales tags, without reprinting when the price moves.

One thing to check before you print: if you sell wholesale, ask your stockist. Some retailers price their own stock and will cover or remove a printed price, others expect the RRP on the tag. It is a two-line email and it saves a reprint.

Cords and attaching your tags

Cords are optional and priced separately. They come in black or white, 17 cm long, with a fixing closure at the ends so you can attach them by hand without a tagging gun. Tags are shipped with the cords loose rather than pre-attached, because brands usually want to tag at the point of packing rather than receive a box of pre-strung tags that tangle.

Every tag has a 3 mm hole punched 8 mm from the top edge, which fits every standard attachment method:

• Cotton or polyester cord. The most common and the most forgiving. Thread it through the hole and loop it onto a buttonhole, a belt loop or a zip pull.
• Plastic barbed fastener. Fired through the fabric with a tagging gun. Fast at volume and standard in retail, but it leaves a small hole, so it goes through a seam allowance or a label rather than through the fabric face.
• Safety pin. Reusable and leaves no permanent mark, which suits knitwear and delicate fabrics.
• Ribbon. Slower and more expensive per unit, and it reads as premium for that reason.

If you are ordering cords with your tags, count on one per tag and order a few spare. Cords are cheap; a reorder for twenty missing cords is not.

Who orders custom swing tags

• Clothing brands preparing a collection for retail, where printed tags replace handwritten or stickered pricing
• Boutiques and shops using merchandise tags and hanger tags to price and identify stock on the rail
• Handmade sellers and Etsy shops who need product tags that make a small run look like a considered line
• Jewellery and accessory designers using the tag as the display card as well as the price tag
• Gift and homeware brands using swing tags on packaging, hampers and seasonal ranges
• Pop-ups, markets and events where a clean tag does the work a shopfront would normally do
• Wholesale suppliers who need barcoded garment tags before a stockist will take the order

Quantities and pricing

Custom swing tags at Super Label Store start at 100 pieces for £49, printed on one side. Double sided printing adds a small surcharge, and the unit price drops automatically as the quantity rises.

From 1,000 tags you can enter your own quantity rather than picking a preset, in increments of 100. So 1,100, 1,500 and 2,000 are all valid, which is useful when you are ordering against a collection rather than a round number.

Need a different size or shape?

We produce custom swing tags in one standard size, which is what keeps the minimum at 100 tags. If your project needs a different size, a custom shape, a different board or a special finish, request a quote and we will price it as a custom run.

Finish the garment properly by pairing them with woven brand labels for the neck and printed care labels for the seam.