What is a Shipping Label?
A shipping label, sometimes called a package label, identifies many things about your package: its point of origin, its destination, its weight, the carrier's name, and so on. These labels are used by humans and their machine counterparts to understand where your package came from, where it needs to go, and what stops it may have made along the way.
Without a clear shipping label, packages can be delayed in transit, delivered to the wrong address, or lost completely. Any of these scenarios may lead to either a financial loss or a loss of customer trust, which makes the shipping label extremely important!
Label
The size of the label is important when shipping. It needs to be large enough to contain all the appropriate information the carrier needs to send, including barcodes that must be scannable.
The industry standard size for shipping labels is 4×6.
That means the label is 4 inches wide and 6 inches long.
All major carriers support these shipping labels, so we recommend that you use them for your business.
Depending on the printer, you can buy labels in rolls or fanfold.
Both come in standard 4×6 industrial size.
If you choose roll labels, you will want to use labels with a 1" core to fit properly into your desktop thermal printer.
Folded labels are also a good option, as they are easy to stack behind the printer and fold up after printing for easier cleanup.
How do I create a shipping label?
Shipping labels are usually created during order processing. Carriers have specific requirements for their shipping labels. There is no way to create your own templates or fill in labels manually. To create a shipping label, you must follow the carrier's requirements.
you can:
Visit your local post office and pay the label there
Arrange your own labels
When you buy a label at the post office, you're actually buying postage at the retail price, which is the most expensive pricing tier for shipping labels.
Arranging your own shipping labels has many more advantages, including discounts on postage and arranging a package pickup without having to wait at the post office. There are even ways to automate the process to reduce manual typing as much as possible.
Learn how to arrange your own shipping labels using these 3 methods:
1: Create your label online
2: Use Shipping Label Software
3: Fully automated with transport
If you have a large number of orders, the shipping tool can save you time and effort and eliminate the need to fill out labels manually.
When considering means of transportation, consider the following:
Which selling platforms do you need to integrate with (Shopify, Magento, etc.)
how much do you ship per month
Where do you ship to? Do you need international shipping?
