A shipping label is one of the key factors of an eCommerce business. They help identify your products and help them reach their required destination. Even though a seemingly small and minute detail of an eCommerce purchase or shipment greatly impacts any business. That is why shipping labels need to be given more attention than they usually are.
If you run an online store, you must be aware that customer satisfaction greatly depends on how quickly you deliver your goods and products. If your order delivery is delayed by even a single day, your customers can get a wrong impression about your business. They might never choose to buy from you. Therefore, to keep your customers happy, you have to ensure your store’s orders are handled efficiently.
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One of the most common reasons businesses get late in delivering their orders is the delays caused in creating and printing shipping labels. A shipping label is necessary for shipping an order appropriately, and most eCommerce store owners know that. Many of these store owners don’t know exactly how to create and paste a shipping label on their product’s packaging.
As a business owner, you must know the difference an accurate shipping label can make. You also need to ensure that each and every product you send out through your eCommerce activities has a well-constructed shipping label on it. For the final result to be beneficial to your business, each step towards it needs to be considered. This includes learning how to create a shipping label and printing shipping labels.
But before we get to any of that, you need to know exactly what a shipping label is. Only then will you be able to understand the importance of shipping labels. This post will also help you understand why you need to pay heed to shipping labels as an eCommerce business owner.
What is a Shipping Label?
A shipping label is a sticker pasted onto any package being shipped out. This sticker has all the information and shipping details of the sender and the package receiver. Information like names, contact numbers, and addresses are always mentioned on the shipping label. Hence, a shipping label indicates where a certain package came from and its final destination.
Basically, the purpose of shipping labels is to ensure that items purchased through ecommerce websites reach their intended destination. They act as a safety sticker on the items so that no one can simply claim that the package belongs to them without proof. If a package was to be misplaced on the way to its destination, the shipping label also helps track its location.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
Shipping labels is useful for the customers who purchase from the eCommerce sites. They confirm to them that they have received the correct package. Also, the barcodes on the packages allow the customers to track the location of their packages as well.
What is the Importance of Shipping Labels?
As simplistic as the concept of a shipping label may seem, its impact should not be underestimated. Let’s discuss a few benefits of creating and using shipping labels.
1. Easy Flow Through Supply Chain
A supply chain includes all the processes involved in getting any product or service from production to the final destination: the customer. A supply chain includes the flow of information downstream and upstream. This can often get confusing, and people lose track of the main purpose - to get the product to the customer. Printing shipping labels for each product can ensure damage control in case of such a situation.
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2. Creates a Professional Image
Imagine receiving a plain cardboard box in the mail. Undoubtedly you will be a little put off by the origins of the package. If you order from a new eCommerce business, you will naturally form a somewhat negative image of it in your mind. Shipping labels help create a professional brand image by making your packages look more out together and well-thought-out.
3. Helps Gauge Efficiency
Along with information on the sender and receiver, a shipping label also includes the shipping date of the package. The shipping date is when a package is shipped out from the eCommerce business to the customer. Once the package is received by the customer, the shipping date indicates the sender and receiver, both of how efficiently the package was delivered.
How to Create an Optimal Shipping Label?
Following are the different pieces of information that are imperative for you to include when you create a shipping label.
- Sender’s name
- Receiver’s name
- Sender’s address
- Receiver’s address
- Contact numbers of both parties
- Tracking information (usually in the form of a barcode or QR code)
- Shipping date
- Expected receiving date
- Shipping type/class (the mode of transport being used to ship the package)
- Any relevant additional information
Other than knowing what informational pieces to include when printing shipping labels, you also need to know how to place it all on the shipping label. Following are the factors you need to focus on when creating shipping labels.
1. Font Size
Always make sure the information printed on the shipping label is not so small that it becomes unreadable. But also make sure that it is so big that it looks out of place and unprofessional. So, if you are new to printing shipping labels, you will have to go through trial and error a few times. Only then you can figure out the perfect size according to the size of your shipping label and the package the shipping label is for.
2. Order of Information
Your shipping label will seem odd if it directly starts with tracking information or if it gives contact numbers without first identifying the sender and receiver. Make sure the order of information on your shipping label makes sense to anyone who comes across it.
3. Location of the Label
You can do everything correctly. You can make the perfect shipping label, including all the correct and relevant information, and still fail to let it accomplish its purpose. How so? This can happen if you stick the shipping label in the wrong place of the packaging. You must place the label on a prominent spot and make it presentable, not awkward.
4. Good Quality Paper
This may seem like a silly point but it is, however, very significant when it comes to shipping labels. You must choose an excellent quality paper for your shipping labels. The sticking quality or method needs to be given special attention to. What happens if the shipping label falls off before the package reaches its destination? No matter how good the label was, it becomes useless.
Creating a Shipping Label in Strikingly
Strikingly is a platform that allows users to build websites without writing any code. Not only that, but we also provide tools to facilitate you in designing, conducting, and reviewing your marketing strategies.
When you build an online store on Strikingly, you can print shipping labels for your products through the order details saved in your Strikingly editor. This means you don’t have to manually type or write your shipping labels on the items before delivering them to the customers.
Image taken from Strikingly
Image taken from Strikingly
Take these steps to create a shipping label in the Strikingly editor.
- Go to your store manager.
- Click ‘Orders’.
- Select an order from the list.
- Click the button that says ‘Print Details’.
- Choose the appropriate settings on the printing options screen.
- Don’t forget to uncheck ‘Headers & Footers’ in the ‘More Settings’ option, or the site editor URL will get printed on your shipping label.
Final Notes
Shipping labels play a vital role in successfully running an online or eCommerce business. They represent the face of your products and packaging styles. They also ensure that your goods are delivered smoothly.
Having a website builder that facilitates printing shipping labels is a massive convenience for online store owners. The more work you can manage through your site editor, the less burden you have to take care of things manually.
If you use Strikingly to build and run your website, you should definitely use our shipping label printing feature to enhance your brand image. Our focus on Strikingly is to regularly update our features to provide a comfortable and time-saving experience to our users in all aspects of their operational and marketing activities.
Our users enjoy the benefit of printing their shipping labels appropriately and getting their orders shipped to the customers smoothly. We are happy to see our users’ customers happy with their products and services. We strive to continue providing such services on our platform that ease out the process of website development and website maintenance for your business.
