Short answer: about two weeks. Five to seven business days to print and sew your bag, then seven to ten days to ship it. Nothing is sitting in a warehouse, because your design does not exist until you order it.
Two weeks is a long time to wait when a different tab will have something at your door tomorrow. So rather than bury the timeline in a shipping policy, here is the whole thing.
Where the days actually go
| Stage | How long | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| Order placed | Same day | Your design and size go into the production queue |
| Printing and sewing | 5 to 7 business days | The artwork is printed onto the material, then cut, lined and assembled |
| In transit | 7 to 10 days | Tracked delivery to your door |
| Total | About 2 weeks |
Business days matter for the first stage. An order placed on a Friday evening starts on Monday.
Why we cannot just keep them in stock
Here is the arithmetic that decides it. We have 247 original designs. Each one exists as six shapes: a handbag, a small handbag, a tote, a makeup bag, a long wallet and a mini wallet. That is 1,482 product pages, and once you count the material options on the bags, several thousand individual items.
To ship same day we would have to hold stock of every one of them. A small brand that did that would be sitting on a warehouse of bags nobody has asked for yet, and the only way to pay for it would be to raise prices or cut the range down to the twelve designs that sell fastest.
We would rather keep the 247. Most of them are somebody's exact words, and the ones that sell slowly are often the ones that matter most to the person who finds them.
What made to order does not mean
It does not mean custom. You are not designing anything and we are not drawing something new for you. The artwork already exists, and what happens after you order is that your specific design gets printed onto your specific size and material.
It also does not mean handmade one at a time by a single person. It is a production line. We say that plainly because "made to order" gets used to imply artisanal craft, and we are not going to lean on a word to make our bags sound like something they are not.
The ink smell, since nobody warns you
A new bag often smells of fresh ink for the first few days. That is a direct consequence of it having been printed a week ago rather than sitting in a box for eight months. It fades on its own in about a week. Leave the bag open in a room with moving air and it goes faster. Do not seal it in plastic, which is the one thing that makes it linger.
Ordering for a birthday or a holiday
Work backwards from the date and add a buffer.
- Three weeks ahead is comfortable. Two weeks of production and shipping, one week of margin.
- Two weeks ahead usually lands, with nothing to spare.
- Under ten days is a real risk, and around major holidays it is worse, because the shipping stage slows down even when production does not.
If you are close to a date, write to cs@paletabags.com before you order rather than after. We will tell you honestly whether it will make it, including when the answer is no.
What you get for the wait
Not much of a consolation on day three, but worth stating: because nothing is pre-made, there are no dead stock discounts to chase and no design gets quietly dropped for being a slow seller. The design you found is still there next year.
Order a handbag and its matching long wallet comes with it at no cost, same artwork, a $39.95 value, one wallet per order. A second piece in the same order is 40% off, and shipping is free over $60.
Common questions
Can I pay to make it faster? Not usefully. Expedited shipping would only compress the second stage, and production is the part that takes the time.
Can I cancel? Yes, within 24 hours of placing your order, before production starts. Email cs@paletabags.com.
Will I get tracking? Yes, once it leaves production. You will not have tracking during the printing and sewing stage, because there is nothing in transit yet. That gap is normal and is the most common reason people write to ask if something went wrong.
What if it arrives and it is not right? If your bag arrives damaged, faulty, or is not the design or color you ordered, email cs@paletabags.com within 30 days of delivery with a photo and we send you a new one. You do not need to send the first one back. Because every bag is made for your order, we do not take returns for a change of mind. A replacement is made to order too, so allow the same two weeks again.
Does the wait change by size? No. A mini wallet and a tote go through the same queue and take the same time.
If you want the measurements before you commit, they are all in one place in Which Bag Size Actually Fits Your Life.