As a small business owner, you want your products to look as good as possible. With so many cheap alternatives available online, yours not only need to be high quality, but look the part too.
But when it comes to presentation, some small businesses neglect their labels, applying ones that fall off, smudge, or weren’t printed well to begin with. While it’s nice to have the authentic, ‘hand-made’ feel, the quality of your labels is important for your products’ success.
Factories and processing plants use huge, expensive, and advanced label printers for their products to ensure quality and fast production. So what can you do to get similar results?
We’re here to help you find the best labels for your products, using the best machinery that will scale with your needs. We’ll also explain why we’re the team to call if you want to keep your label printers working at their best.
Why Products need Product Labels
We don’t often realise it, but almost every product we buy has some form of label attached. From cooking instructions, allergen information, and use by dates on food and drink to the humble barcode, labelling is a crucial part of any production line.
There are usually two types of labels for products. Some are printed directly onto the packaging/carton/container. For example, a pack of playing cards that will be wrapped in plastic and sold individually will almost certainly have a barcode printed on the box. This is so it can be sold in stores, but there is no additional information that must be included for legal reasons.
The other type of label is one that is stuck onto the container during the production process. These can either be a hardwearing sticker that won’t accidentally peel off, so that products with long lives will always have the relevant information attached.
But others are stuck on more loosely so they can be removed with ease. This is common with perishable items with disposable packaging, such as drinks bottles. Their labels can be taken off for recycling purposes, or aren’t designed to last for a long time as the products aren’t.
To ensure that your labels last as long as they should and are high quality, you need a reliable label printer.
The Best Label Printers for Small Businesses
For a small business, a label printer needs to be the following:
- Affordable
- Practical
- Reliable
If you shop around, it’s easy to find a machine that is all three, but it can be a minefield if you don’t know where to look.
Let’s start with the price. When starting a small business, you naturally want to keep costs low so you can focus on making and selling your products, hoping that you’ll recoup the costs quickly. But if you bought a cheap label printer, it won’t work well, it’ll print poor quality labels, and it won’t scale with your business.
The latter is very important when picking up your printer. You want your business to grow quickly, but that means you’ll outgrow your printer sooner than you’d hope. In some ways this is good, your business is thriving, but on the other hand you’ll need to purchase a brand-new machine that you should’ve bought on day one.
So what about practicality? There are a number of different label printers out there, and it might not be obvious which one is best for your needs. For example, you could pick up a small, desk-sized label printer that is great for receipts, stickers, and shipping labels (more about those in a moment). But what if you need to start printing at a faster rate to keep up with your demand, or the printer you’re using can’t create the labels you need for your next product line? Once again it hasn’t scaled with you.
And now we come to the most important thing to consider when buying a printer: reliability. An unreliable printer can cause so many headaches that it deserves its own section of the blog…
Choosing a Reliable Label Printer for your Business
So what does an unreliable printer look like? Well it will have parts that wear out faster than they should, such as the print head or printer engine. It might also be overheating when you need a lot of work, or could have software issues like poor connectivity.
But the biggest issues affect the prints themselves. If you use a cheap Inkjet printer, you’ll often have smudges, illegible text, and images that would look better if they were hand drawn. This won’t reflect well on your business, potentially putting off what should be a repeat customer. Some more basic printers don’t work with high-quality label material, meaning you have no choice but to print inferior ones.
Quality is just as important when it comes to your shipping labels. They may be temporary, and not tied directly to your business (unless you add some branding to them), but if they’re smudged, or peel easily from packaging, your products might not reach the front door of your customers on time.
If your printer keeps letting you down, and it isn’t yet time to upgrade to a new model, we’re here to help.
Label Printer Servicing and Maintenance
To keep your label printer up and running, you need a service agreement. These are mostly used for larger businesses, whose printers are running throughout the workday to keep up with high demands. A small fault can have a major impact on production, so having the machines regularly serviced by our engineers prevents any unexpected breakages.
They’ll take the machine apart, scrutinising each part to check for any wear. If parts are reaching the end of their lifespan, we’ll let you know so you can arrange replacements, or have us fit them for you. With a warehouse full of spare parts and peripherals for all brands of printer, we won’t need to waste time ordering them in, meaning any necessary repairs can be completed faster.
Smaller businesses can also benefit from working from us. While your machinery isn’t as advanced as the industrial printers seen in factories, you still need to keep yours working well, and we have everything you need to ensure it does.
To find out more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.