Printing own shipping labels?

[rschissler]

With the PO price increases, I've just started printing my own shipping labels.  Rather than printing on a blank piece of paper and then taping to the front, do any of you use adhesive backed labels?  Two to a sheet, or like the ones UPS uses? Any links to any?  

[bigdeals.etc]

Try Uline.com

Also if you want to take it further get a thermal printer that doesn't use toner/ink. The initial cost is hefty, but if you plan on using it in the long haul, it will save money. A popular printer is Zebra GC420.

[sam9876]

Ummmmm...  use the free labels from UPS.

[rschissler]

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wrote:

Ummmmm...  use the free labels from UPS.

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Huh?  UPS is going to give me free labels to print on my own printer, so I can then drop off at USPS?  Not likely.

[ripcityresell]

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wrote:

With the PO price increases, I've just started printing my own shipping labels.  Rather than printing on a blank piece of paper and then taping to the front, do any of you use adhesive backed labels?  Two to a sheet, or like the ones UPS uses? Any links to any?  

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Yes, I order them about a 1000 at a time. They have very inexpensive. A simple search here on eBay will find you a whole bunch of them.

[sam9876]

"UPS is going to give me free labels to print on my own printer, so I can then drop off at USPS?"

Yes.

[goodluckselling]

Here is the listing I buy from several times a year

1400 self adhesive shipping labels

They ship out very quickly from Charlotte NC

Good Luck Selling!

[luxe_beauty_4_less]

I print on a thermal printer, a Brother QL-1050.  You can buy rolls from House Labels here on eBay that are very high quality.  The eBay labels will print to that as 4"x6" labels.  I think the setting on eBay is a Zebra printer which the Brother is compatible with.  In any case, these are cut for you and you peel and stick.  We used to use the full sheet half labels and had to cut them to make them fit our poly bubble mailers.  No more.  This cut our shipping time down tremendously using these labels.  I buy my labels 21 or 24 rolls at a time.  My Brother printer is now going on year 3 and has printed probably more than 25,000 labels.  I have a new one sitting in the box as a backup just in case.  🙂  They are that important to our shipping process.  

[buyselljack2016]

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wrote:

Ummmmm...  use the free labels from UPS.

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Huh?  UPS is going to give me free labels to print on my own printer, so I can then drop off at USPS?  Not likely.

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I don't use them, but often get USPS shipped items in with a UPS label.

I print on a sheet of paper. I get the "label", "an online label record", and a "packing slip" from each sheet.

I purchase clear tape in bulk. Well under $1 roll.  I buy paper when on sale, and with rebate when possible. Always under $2 for 500 sheets.

[sockmonkeydave]

@rschissler

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wrote:

With the PO price increases, I've just started printing my own shipping labels.  Rather than printing on a blank piece of paper and then taping to the front, do any of you use adhesive backed labels?  Two to a sheet, or like the ones UPS uses? Any links to any?  

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I used adhesive labels when I first started.

But over a long weekend, a package I had ready to go started peeling up.

Now I print on plain paper and tape over all the label, other than a small slice of the bar code.

The way I see it that protects from rain or snow damage, so you can read the label.

And if an edge of your adhesive label lifts up, good chance as it goes down the line.

the PO will end up with a box with no label.

[itsjustasprain]

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I used adhesive labels when I first started.

But over a long weekend, a package I had ready to go started peeling up.

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Somehwere around here i have a photo of a package i got once where the self adhesive label was barely hanging on by ONE Corner. It was stuck to a plastic paded mailing envelope which you would think would be tenacious but the envelope had some kind of slightly waxy coating to it and the sticker was all but off the package. Ive seen cardboard boxes that had the same weird waxy finish where you could peel the tape or the labels off clean. I took the photo because i felt bad for the seller and thought i should send him a heads up about the padded envelopes he was using.

I would say though that most of the time they stick real well. But then they can be a pain if you want to reuse the box and you can't get the label to peel off. But thats just me.

[sockmonkeydave]

@itsjustasprain

lol... I tape things like it's gonna get kicked out of a plane at 5000 ft.

[electrola_man]

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wrote:

With the PO price increases, I've just started printing my own shipping labels.  Rather than printing on a blank piece of paper and then taping to the front, do any of you use adhesive backed labels?  Two to a sheet, or like the ones UPS uses? Any links to any?  

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I print all labels from Ebay.  For boxes that are large enough to support the full-sized labels, I use a purchased adhesive-backed label that includes one postage label per page, along with a small summary receipt.  I buy them online, getting 250 for somewhere around $32 delivered to me.  The labels I buy have pre-cut areas that correspond to the label and receipt area.  I had to determine the correct margins to use before printing to get it all to center right, but once I figured that out, it worked great.  I peel out the big postage label and put it on the box, and secure the area over the addresses and the ends with clear tape, leaving bar code areas bare.  Maybe they'd be okay with no tape support, but I'd rather be absolutely sure.  I peel out the small receipt area and attach that to the bottom of a duplicate packing slip I keep for my records.  It works really nice, since there is no cutting.  I like to have the adhesive under the whole area, too.  Since I understand we're not supposed to tape over the bar codes, I don't like the idea of those areas being just loose on the box surface.  The scrap then gets thrown away.  I only work on one package at a time and print one label at a time to make sure nothing gets mixed up.

For boxes that are too small for the full-sized labels, I scale the label size down, print on regular paper, then cut out the label, cover the back with glue stick adhesive, then attach as above.  I use a wide glue stick that requires only a few seconds of effort to coat the back of a label.  I then glue the small receipt area onto my duplicate packing slip.  I have scaled down as far as 70% for small labels, but recently the smallest boxes I use are 6X4X4 that allow 82% to fit just right.  I print using a laser printer, so bar codes are still sharp and clear, and I've never had the PO have a problem scanning them.  I don't know if an ink jet printer would do well enough on labels scaled down very far.  I've never tried that.

[southern*sweet*tea]

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  I have scaled down as far as 70% for small labels, but recently the smallest boxes I use are 6X4X4 that allow 82% to fit just right.  I print using a laser printer, so bar codes are still sharp and clear, and I've never had the PO have a problem scanning them.  I don't know if an ink jet printer would do well enough on labels scaled down very far.  I've never tried that.

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Plain paper user here. Scaling at 80% works just fine.  Any smaller and it starts to get sketchy as far as sharpness.