All posts by admin

How to Get Beautiful Product Labels that Sell

Label Printing

Product labels will help you sell. There’s no ifs or buts about it. They are extremely powerful, but only when they look good. And this applies to both physical and digital labels. So, how do you make your product labels beautiful so they stand out? Here are four tips to make sure your digital or printed labels sell.

Make Sure They’re the Right Size!

This sounds like a very basic and obvious requirement, but many business owners overlook it. Sizing is especially important for printed labels. There’s nothing worse than having a label that covers over the whole of your product or having one that is so small that you can’t see the details.

Pull out the ruler and start measuring up the sizing. You want to cover a good amount of your product, without disguising everything that is within it. If you have clear printed labels, you’ll want to make sure the wording is clearly visible against the product colour.

Keep Labels Simple

Whether printed or digital labels, they need to be as simple as possible. You want to state what the product is and who made it, without too much extra information. Okay, there will be some legal requirements with some, but your product labels need to be basic.

Too much information detracts the buyer. They won’t know where to look if you have buzzwords and marketing terms all over the place. Simple will tell your buyers what your product is and where to come for more of the same.

Work With Your Branding

Colour choices and fonts should all work with your current branding. If you’re rebranding, this is a great time to think of your new colour and font schemes.

When people look at the labels, they should instantly know who you are. Think of the likes of Johnson & Johnson, Nike, and other big names. Just one glance and people know who they are. Everything from their websites and marketing materials to clothing logos and product labels are uniform to help with brand awareness.

Think About Your Consumer

Colours speak volumes to your consumer, so the colours you use need to speak volumes to your buyers. Using pinks and oranges on products for men isn’t going to help you sell. The men won’t be attracted to the products as much as women will. Likewise, blacks and dark blues tend to be more masculine in colours.

This could mean a whole rebrand for your company. The rebranding will be worth it in the long term, but annoying right now. Just think about who your consumer is and the types of colours that work for them. If in doubt, ask your consumer base directly to find out.

It’s time to make your product labels stand out. With the above four tips, you can improve your brand awareness, connect with your buyers, and sell more products. These tips work for both printed labels and digital labels. There is no excuse not to get a sale anymore.

4 Types of Label Application Methods

Label Printing

Applying labels by hand can take time. It all depends on the methods that you use. There are various ways that you can apply branding labels, new pricing stickers, and more. Here are five methods of label application you should know about for your business.

Handheld Label Applicators

These are among the most popular options. They are relatively heavy and bulky because of the weight of the label roll, but they are extremely easy to use. You just press the trigger, the label is released and applied to the product by moving the applicator along. You can then move onto the next item.

These first type of handheld label applicators are ideal for applying labels to outer boxes or items where the label positioning doesn’t have to be 100% accurate.

Handheld Price Marking Guns

Pricing guns or handheld pricing applicators are more compact because they use smaller size labels. They are for putting small price labels on products and are mostly used in retail and storage environments. They can be specified for a range of label shapes and sizes with single or multiple lines for price and date marking printed onto the labels by the gun’s printing mechanism. You can manually change the characters or symbols that you want to print on the dials of the gun.

Automatic Label Applicators

For applying labels to round products or if you want to label large quantities of items you might consider to invest in a semi-automatic desktop applicator solution. These applicators are roll-fed and can be hooked up with desktop label printers. Some have mechanisms that can turn cylindrical products during label application or some have pneumatic applicator pads that press labels onto products with flat surfaces. These are stationary solutions for medium labelling quantities and provide consistent label positioning without having to worry about manually sticking on and re-sticking to get it right.

Fully automatic applicators are usually connected to conveyor belts and are often integrated into production lines.  They apply labels onto products with high precision and at great speeds. These are industrial applications and require a fair amount of specialist integration, however they are the standard in many packing environments.

Do It All By Hand

Okay, so this isn’t quite an applicator but a way to stick the labels on yourself. It’s also not the most efficient option out of the lot. This method uses your own hands to do all the work and it will take time. You have to unpeel the stickers and then place them exactly.

The handheld label applicators are just far quicker and more beneficial. You’ll get more done in a short space of time, which means more profit as more products can be placed on show.

It’s time to invest in handheld pricing applicators or a stationary label applicator. They will cut down effort and time significantly. Now you just have to choose your method.

Why Pricing Guns are still Relevant in 2016 & 2017

Label Printing,

The humble pricing gun has been a retail environment staple for generations. Moreover, pricing gun designs themselves have barely changed over the course of the past three decades. However, with the rise of digital label printing and in-store/home office printed labels, some are starting to argue that the pricing gun as we know it is becoming irrelevant in modern retail environments. That point of view, however, is extremely flawed, if not altogether untrue.

Price Marking Gun Benefits

If you operate any kind of retail business, you will inevitably need to amend product pricing occasionally in line with new promotions, last minute flash sales, and your need to reduce items to clear. In this case, price marking guns are invaluable to retailers as even staff with minimal training can use such devices and can apply up to 60 labels per minute.

Of course, premises equipped with on-site automatic label printers/applicators will always be argued to be able to print and administer much higher quality and larger size labels in much the same time frame. However, in the particular case where items are reduced to clear, the costs of using higher quality labels for such items will often not be economical.

Easy of use and Versatility

Because price marking guns allow retailers to price products on the shelf, guns themselves are highly versatile. At the same time, tagging guns can be used to tag items with hang-tags rather than adhesive labels.

That said, it is important to note that price marking guns still have an important place in modern retail operations. The key is to always choose a model of price marking gun which can administer the type of price marking labels that suit your existing brand identity. In this way, your price marking labels and standard printed labels will be able to complement each other and help you drive sales accordingly.

 

Product Labels: Which are Right for You?

Label Printing,

We all know that product labels are an essential part of any successful product marketing strategy. Labels aren’t just about pricing and expiry dates. Product labels are your product advertising, they are representative of your unique brand identity, and labels need to be as informative and engaging as possible in order to make people actually want to buy your products.

Given the above, retailers and product manufacturers often choose to invest in high-quality digitally printed labels. The only question is, should you be investing in digitally printed labels? And if so, should you invest in printing your own or should you outsource your printing requirements to a professional production company?

Understanding your own Product Labelling Needs

If you manufacture a product which is designed to be sold in any real world retail context, you definitely would consider to invest in high-quality digital printed labels. If you don’t, your products might fail to enthuse the people in store. Rather, retailers themselves will likely refrain from buying your products and not allocate prime shelf space in the first place.

Of course, with the rise of online sales and dropshipping, it might be the case that your products simply aren’t intended to take pride of place visually on a local store shelf. This being the case, if you are focusing on making sales through online retailers such as Amazon, your best option is to side with a simpler handheld label applicator or a more automated application device which you can use to apply more basic labels as expeditiously as possible.

Printing your own Product Labels vs Having Labels Printed for You

Due to on-site label printing equipment for colour printing often costing thousands of pounds, the least costly option for many product manufacturers and vendors is to outsource their label printing requirements. However, office and desktop printers do have many long-term and specifically cost reducing benefits. For one, you will only ever print the labels you need as and when you need them in real-time. In like regard, with your own printer, you can amend product details and pricing on your labels whenever you might need to. The use of a single colour bar-code printer might also be an economical option. Alternatively, the printing of a generically printed colour label with a blank text field could be out-sourced and then be overprinted in-house with current information in one colour.

The above being the case, always make sure to weigh the pros and cons of any product labeling strategy carefully. Decide what your true needs are and always feel free to reach out to professional printers and device vendors such as ourselves in order to discuss your options in a little more detail.

How Digital Labels for Packaging are Changing

Label Printing,

With the majority of new equipment installations in traditional printing establishments being digital, it’s no secret that digitally printed labels are playing a major part in the future of any and all kinds of product packaging. Digital printing cuts costs and helps even budget-conscious marketers create incredible label designs, and is quickly becoming the expected standard among product consumers.

However, while the shift toward digital printing has been somewhat seismic in itself over the past ten to 15 years, it is important to understand that the digitally printed label is itself still evolving.

Why you need to be Making your Labels Interactive

While every product vendor and marketer should be focusing on creating the most eye-catching and informative labels possible, modern consumerism isn’t just about 2D text and printed images anymore. Rather, more and more big brands and popular product lines are including interactive elements such as QR codes and augmented reality onto their printed labels.

Using features such as QR codes, product consumers can instantly link to intuitive product information and promotion based resources online. However, incorporating interactive elements on digitally printed labels isn’t just about adding value to a product. Instead, elements such as QR codes help consumers connect with brands and products personally. This helps brands build social media followers and drastically expand on their traditional marketing efforts.

How to get Started with Interactive Elements

While incorporating interactive elements into digital product labels might sound complicated, doing so is actually easy. If you have a QR code, you can either request that your label printer incorporates this onto your label design for you, or you can incorporate such items yourself using a home or office label printer. In either case, don’t get left behind by the next stage in the digital labeling revolution. Instead, start making smarter product labels today in order to start realizing the benefits yourself.

Handheld Label Applicators

Label Printing, ,

Both online and real world retailers are aware of how important it is to employ high-quality printed labels when marketing and selling products. The only question is, how to you expedite the process of actually applying labels to your products as well as just printing or having them printed in the first place?

How handheld Label Applicators Work

Different to pricing guns which can be configured to price items individually as retailers go about their business, hand-held label applicators allow retailers to just as conveniently apply printed labels to products.

If you have a large volume of stock which you need to ship or display on a regular basis, applying printed labels by hand can be tortuously time-consuming. Thankfully, hand-held applicators help you expedite this process and can allow you to label hundreds of products in as little as under an hour. You simply load your labels and apply them to your products in much the same was as you would apply labels using a pricing gun.

Important Things to Consider when Choosing a Hand Held Applicator

The key thing to keep in mind when choosing a hand-held label applicator is that different applicators will often be restrictive in regard to the size of the labels which they can be used to apply. This being the case, when looking at handheld applicators, you should pay close attention to the label sizes any device can capably administer and match label sizes with your products accordingly.

Handheld Label Applicators vs Digitally Printed Labels

If you are a retailer or marketer, you already know how important it is to create high-quality product labels for your products. In this regard, it should be noted that handheld label applicators will rarely be able to provide the same kind of label application speed as a stationary, fully automated label applicator device can. However, handheld label applicators themselves make an excellent backup, are completely portable and should always be the preferred choice for warehouse and smaller retailers, due to their portability and cost efficiency.

Could Professionally Printed Labels Increase Your Product Sales?

Label Printing

For the past twenty years, the big idea of the moment has been to invest less in traditional printed media and advertising, while throwing as much money as possible at online marketing and the opening up of ever more product sales channels. Moreover, for some people that strategy still works. The only problem is that new businesses especially seem to be starting to forget just how important professionally printed product packaging and labels are to their overall sales success.

Printed Labels & Creating a Killer First Impression

Whether we like it or not, the world of marketing and advertising is all about image. Products sell because they are expertly packaged and labelled. Hence why while homemade food stuffs almost always taste better, 90% of high street shoppers will forgo the traditional farmers market in favour of the baked goods aisle in their local supermarket.

Why Professionally Printed Labels Matter more than Ever

However, in 2016 the burgeoning DIY and Internet marketing hype of the 21st century is actually starting to have an adverse effect on many physical product and consumable goods sales.

This is because many product manufacturers attempt to save by not investing anything at all in professional packaging or printed labels for their products. If something is being sold online, after all, sellers and distributors don’t need items to catch consumers’ eyes like they would have to in the real world.

The only problem? This way of thinking simply doesn’t work. When even high-quality products arrive with consumers minus professional packaging and labels, the consumer’s perception of quality lowers significantly. At the same time, if you have a product line which you don’t invest in professional packaging or labeling for, you significantly limit the number of online and offline sales channels which you can use to move your product in the first place.

All of the above being the case, professionally printed labels are just as important as ever when it comes to successful product sales and marketing. The only question is, are your own labels really wowing your target audience? Or do you perhaps need to invest in something a little more professional and even more eye-catching?

Getting The Right Design Help for your Printed Labels

LabelDesigns, Label Printing,

Without a doubt, the foremost benefit of using a professional label printing service lies with the professional design support which printers such as ourselves can provide.

For smaller businesses especially, hiring an in-house label designer can be inordinately expensive. However, not having a professional look and feel to your product labels can significantly impact your overall product sales. This being the case, label printers such as ourselves are proud to complement our printing services with dedicated label design support.

How our own Design Studio Works

When you order printed labels, you traditionally have two choices. Either you can supply your own label design, or you can ask us to render an appealing and eye-catching design for you. Even better, in the latter case, all you need to do is provide us with any text and images which you would like using on your labels and we will literally take care of everything else.

Why Having Professionally Designed Labels Matters

Contrary to popular belief, a professionally designed label isn’t just about employing a design concept which entices consumers to buy a product. Instead, even basic label designs can prove successful, providing that they look professionally rendered and produced. There is, after all, a noticeable difference between labels made at home using Microsoft Word and a few clipart artifacts, and labels which present the same information, just more professionally.

How to get Started

If you are in need of label design as well as printing services, you literally only have to send us your existing materials with as specific as possible a design brief. However, if you are unsure in regard to what exactly you need to send, simply reach out to us directly in order to discuss your label design in a little more detail.

In either case, never invest in printed labels for any of your products unless your overall label design is of high enough quality. Without a high-quality design, your products simply might not sell as well as they could. In this case, let us help you start realizing the ROI which you are looking for and contact us directly today for more information.

The Chief Benefits of Desktop Label Printers

Label Printing

On-site printing for businesses has come a long way over the past decade. In fact, with advances in in-house printing technology and the easy availability of professional design software, many businesses can now create and print high street quality labels ready to be applied to products immediately.

At the same time, however, it’s no secret that high-quality desktop printers can be expensive. The main question, in this case, is could a label printer actually help you save in the long term?

Desktop Label Printers & Significant Printing Savings

As a rule, if you regularly order large quantities of labels from a professional printing service, you will make considerable savings by using a desktop printer. This is because you will only ever print labels in the quantities you need, with your printing costs themselves being significantly reduced with every batch you print.

Less Waste & lots more Flexibility

Have you ever found yourself in the position of having a stockpile of labels which you can’t use due to a last minute change to an essential piece of product information?

If so, you will know how costly and frustrating it can be to have to order a completely new set of labels. However, if you print your own labels, this simply can’t happen. Instead, because you will only ever print the amount of labels you need at any one moment, you will be able to easily make changes to your product details as you go.

Experience Significant time Savings

As well as reducing waste, printing your own labels can also save a considerable amount of time. Few professional printers can turn around and deliver an order in less than 24-hours. At the same time, delayed deliveries due to bad weather and hiccups in transit can leave you with unlabeled stock which you can’t sell until your labels do finally arrive.

Limitations

Desktop label printers are suitable where just-in-time colour labelling is required with a large variety of versions. For small to medium runs they are economical but larger runs are better produced on industrial type machines. The ultimate product quality is only provided by those larger machines and if varnishing/lamination or special shaped die-cutting is required, the desktop technology reaches its limits.

Thankfully, investing in a desktop label printer means that you print your labels as and when you need them and can instantly put your products on your store shelves. Even better, you can even start experimenting with your own label designs and in doing so, start cutting out costs associated with any third-party design support. The only question is, are you ready to start experiencing the benefits?

Desktop Label Printers

Label Printing

If your business has a constant need to create new labels, then investing in a desktop label printer could be a viable solution for your business. A desktop label printer will give you the flexibility to produce labels whenever you need to, change labelling as necessary and provide a convenient means for producing eye-catching labels that are essential to get your product noticed.

Colour Laser Printers

There are two main types of desktop label printers. The first is a colour label printer. These printers can help you to produce smaller runs of labels in different versions very quickly in-house, while still providing high quality results needed to help get your products noticed.

Models like the Epson Colorworks 3500 have been designed to be time efficient and convenient to use, and they are suitable for a wide range of services including packaging labels, tickets and ID cards. They produce durable labels, and they can be customised to suit your company’s individual needs.

Another model to consider is the Epson Colorworks 7500. This desktop printer has been designed to be low maintenance, fast and reliable, while also delivering quality results for your on-demand label printing.

Thermal Barcode Printers

There are numerous models available and they offer an affordable means of producing high quality, professional looking labels with consecutive numbering or barcoding or mono-colour text and logos. They can be used in a wide range of industries including healthcare, retail and manufacturing, and they’ll offer consistent results when it comes to producing on-demand in-house labelling. These printers either require plain die-cut labels or pre-printed die-cut labels with blank spaces for over-printing.

Thermal barcode printers are often used in production, distribution or retail environments where instant product marking is required. Often these printers are directly integrated into packing lines . They either come as budget versions or as heavy-duty industrial devices with larger roll capacity advanced features. In addition, the very compact sizes of the smaller printers mean they are an excellent solution if space is at a premium.