PlanBags Has Retired 1968-2021
planbags.comAs an architect we often deliver full size 24" or 30" long drawing rolls and need an easy way to wrap. Using kraft paper bags is the easiest to store and wrap, and our vendor was a specialist of one item only. They retired and I thought it was cool that they posted links to 2 other vendors.
One of which has posted a reason to use their product: Finger-Friendly Design To help reduce paper cuts, our bags feature a sawtooth-shaped trim. The softer edge reduces shear on the bag’s open end. We call it “cutting-edge technology”. https://blueprintmailingbags.com/
I love two things about that site, after discovering it now:
- The fact that the ordering form does not compute the total price, and also asks you to manually keep track of adding $0.25/ea for orders under 100 pieces.
- That they practically bomb you with their phone number, which is also said to be the company president's number. That's very accessible, if you're into that kind of thing.
I'll bet you anything that form just sends an email to the president who then prints it out and fills out the order details.
It's probably much easier for them if you call, and once your setup you just call and ask for a refill.
I'm definitely picturing a dot matrix printer with the alternating white and green rows and holes on the sides of the accordion-folded paper.
I have implemented order forms that would send an email to a printer located in the warehouse. The customer said they had a very well refined process from the days when fax was dominant and no good reason to change. That was a decade or two ago though, so maybe they now have caught up with that digital thing.
A specialty business like PlanBags doesn't survive 50 years without building deep decades-long relationships with some customers. It's easy to forget that in tech when the biggest players shut down services with no lead time.
It's amazing how many companies out there that specialize in one thing and do that one thing very well.
Example: https://www.ballchain.com/about-us/
Wow, what a cool company! Makes me itch to order hundreds of feet of ball chain and make a huge chain fountain [1] to entertain the kids!
When I was buying a bunch of N95 masks I came across "Bona Fide Masks" and was initially taken aback that it was the same company as "ballchain.com". My first thought was "Oh great, some shady thing...".
Then I got looking into ballchain.com and was quite impressed for exactly what you say: they do something really well.
This company restores dash boards for cars (anything from ~1960–~2000):
There’s a company specializing in restoring lighted panels for aircraft: https://aircapitoldial.com/
I’ve got a few friends/acquaintances running nice single-digit million revenue companies doing some of the strangest things.
One of them turned a quite niche idea (“ice as a service”) into a successful 8-figures ARR company and sold it.
Sweet! You get free shipping if you order 2000ft of ball chain.
Nice of them to give you a ... planb ... ags.
I'll see myself out.
Using a 'planbag' for shipping, doesn't the blueprint arrives full of folds? Is that not an issue?
My wife does sewing pattern printing which I think is somewhat similar, ie very large format prints on a very expensive printer. She ships either folded in a large-size envelope or (for an extra fee) rolled in a sturdy container.
Looking at the picture on the website here, it looks like the bags are big enough to support rolling, so I imagine it doesn't crease the plans.
They could’ve sold to Dunder Mifflin