Paper bag guide
How Many Paper Bags to Order
A simple way to estimate a bulk paper bag order from your weekly sales
Why does the order quantity matter so much?
Order too few bags and you run out on a busy Saturday. Staff start using the wrong size, or customers leave with their purchases in their hands.
Order too many and cartons fill your back room for a year. If you change your logo or your hours, the old bags become scrap.
Price plays a part too. The cost per bag falls as quantity rises, so very small orders cost more per bag. The goal is the largest order you can store and use before anything changes.
Running out also costs more than it seems. A rushed order leaves no time to check the proof properly, and that is when mistakes slip through.
The good news is that the math is simple. You need three numbers. How many sales you make, how many bags each sale uses and how long a new order takes.
How do you estimate weekly bag use?
Start with transactions, not revenue. Your point of sale system shows last week's sales count. Last month's count divided by four also works.
Next, estimate the share of sales that leave with a bag. In a clothing store it can be nearly all of them. In a café, many customers eat in or carry a single cup.
Count it for a day if you are not sure. Put a tally sheet by the register and mark each bag handed out. One normal day times your trading days gives a fair weekly figure.
Weekly bags = weekly transactions × share that take a bag × bags per bagged sale. The last number gets its own section below.
How many bags does each sale use?
Most retail sales use one bag. Larger purchases may need two, and some customers ask for a spare to split a gift.
Food service is different. A delivery order might use an outer carryout bag plus a sandwich bag and a fry sleeve inside it. That is three bags for one sale.
Count each bag style separately. Outer bags, sleeves and pastry bags run out at different speeds, so each needs its own estimate.
Watch out for doubled bags. On heavy orders, staff may slip one bag inside another, which quietly doubles use on those sales.
As a starting point, retail stores often use 1.0 to 1.2 bags per bagged sale. Restaurants should count each style per order. For outer bags sized to your containers, see our takeout paper bags.
A worked example: a café with a retail shelf
Here is the math for an example café that sells coffee, pastries and retail coffee beans. Swap in your own numbers.
The café makes 1,400 sales a week. About 60% leave with a bag, and those sales use 1.1 bags on average.
It wants 12 weeks of bags per order. It uses three sizes: small pastry bags, medium mixed-order bags and a few large ones.
The size split comes from two weeks of counting at the register. The reorder point uses three weeks of cover, explained in the next section.
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Bagged sales per week | 1,400 × 60% | 840 |
| Bags per week | 840 × 1.1 | 924 |
| Bags for 12 weeks | 924 × 12 | 11,088 |
| Small bags (60%) | 11,088 × 60% | About 6,650 |
| Medium bags (30%) | 11,088 × 30% | About 3,330 |
| Large bags (10%) | 11,088 × 10% | About 1,110 |
| Reorder point | 924 × 3 weeks | About 2,800 bags left |
When should you reorder paper bags?
Reorder when the bags you have left will just cover the time a new order takes, plus a safety margin.
Count the lead time in three parts. First, a day or two for you to check and sign off the proof.
After that, the press needs 4–6 business days, and the carton spends 2–3 business days on the road.
Add those up and the worst case is around 10 to 11 business days, a little over two weeks. Adding one week of safety stock gives three weeks of cover.
So the reorder point is three weeks of use. In the example, that is 924 × 3, or about 2,800 bags. When the stock drops to that level, send the reorder.
Reorders of the same printed design are quicker to arrange, because your approved artwork is already on file. Our shipping and delivery details explain the tracking side.
How should you split an order across sizes?
Most businesses use two or three sizes, and they rarely run out at the same speed. Split the order by how often each size is used, not evenly.
Track it for two weeks. Count how many cartons of each size you open, or tally sizes at the register. The shares you find become your split.
In gift and beauty stores, the small size often goes fastest. In clothing stores, the medium size usually leads. In food service, the outer bag size follows your most common order.
Unsure which sizes you need at all? Use our paper bag sizes chart and pick the two that cover most sales.
Planning for busy seasons and events
Weekly averages hide peaks. Some weeks may run at double your normal sales. Plan for them separately, and have the bags on hand before they start.
Common peaks we see on bag orders include:
- Valentine's Day for florists, chocolatiers and gift shops.
- Easter for bakeries, candy shops and party suppliers.
- Back to school for lunch bags and stationery stores.
- Halloween for treat bags, popcorn and party favors.
- Wedding season for favor bags and gift bags.
- Store openings, sales and company events, which need a one-off order.
How much space does a bag order take?
Paper bags ship flat, so they take less room than people expect. Still, 11,000 bags in three sizes is a real stack of cartons.
Before you order 12 weeks at once, check where the cartons will go. They need a dry spot off the floor, away from sinks and back doors.
Use the oldest cartons first, especially with printed bags that carry dates, prices or seasonal artwork. Mark the delivery date on each carton so staff do not open new stock while old stock sits behind it.
If space is tight, order fewer weeks at a time and reorder more often. The unit price may be a little higher, but you keep your back room usable. Our paper bag help center covers other ordering questions.
What if your sales are growing or changing?
The estimate is only as good as last month's numbers. If sales are climbing, build the growth into the order rather than reacting after you run short.
A simple method works. If sales grew 10% over the last quarter, multiply your weekly bag use by 1.1 before you calculate the order.
In the example café, 924 bags a week becomes about 1,016. Twelve weeks of cover then rises from about 11,100 to about 12,200 bags.
Changes in what you sell matter too. A new delivery service, a bigger retail shelf or a new menu item can shift your size mix within weeks.
Check your numbers each time you reorder. Five minutes with last month's sales report keeps the next order close to what you really use.
Work out your own order in six steps
Grab last month's sales report and a calculator. This takes about ten minutes, and the numbers go straight into a paper bag quote request.
- Find your weekly transactions from your sales report.
- Multiply by the share of sales that leave with a bag.
- Multiply by bags per bagged sale to get weekly bag use.
- Multiply weekly use by the number of weeks you want each order to cover.
- Split that total by size, based on how often each size is used.
- Set your reorder point at three weeks of use, and reorder when stock reaches it.
