Trust me I get it, paying someone else to design, print and ship your labels to you is an incredibly expensive endeavour. That being said, I would love to help you cut down your cost per product like I have, read below to find out how to save $1-$2 per product.
So - First things first, you will need a printer. It does not have to be anything incredibly fancy. I bought my printer during a Black Friday sale and I believe it was only $170 (Regular price was around $270). If you do need to buy a printer, I would suggest the Canon G3060 Series because you fill up the ink cartridges with ink bottles which is infinitely less expensive than cartridges. Also, I bought this printer a year ago now and it came fully stocked with ink and with two extra bottles of black. I print labels constantly and i still have not even opened the two. extra black containers. Well worth it. If you have your own printer already - That's great, you just need to figure out what the right settings to use are (Which I will explain below) and presto you are in business.
Now, you are thinking OK great I got my printer sorted out but how do I design my labels? CANVA! Canva will be your best friend. If you are not familiar with it yet, open a separate tab and go to canva.com I would also suggest you create an account first because it will save your designs to your account so you can always access them again to make changes. This is what Canva looks like:
You can search for a design based on the size/dimensions that you need it for or you can just look up general terms and words. A great place to start looking is by searching "Product Label". This will bring up a ton of FREE or PAID options. You can of course choose whatever is right for you and matches your brands style. Keeping your labels clean and professional goes a long way - Try to choose design templates that are easy to read and will not overwhelm your customers eyes. Here are some of the options that come up:
Now, once you have designed your labels, you are ready to print them! Personally, I use sheets of Glossy Sticker Paper that I can cut to any size that I wish with my Cricut or paper cutter. On Amazon these are about $24 for 100 sheets. You can also get full sheets of Matte stickers or Kraft stickers if that is what matches your brand. If you do not wish to cut the labels yourself, Avery labels work wonderfully and are easy to use.
Once you are ready to actually print them out, you need to make sure your printer is on the best possible settings to print high quality labels that do not smudge or take hours, even days to dry - Nobody Has Time For That. To set your printer up there are usually two things you need to change. The first is the setting on your actual printer. Usually your printer will have a menu button - What you're looking for is "Paper or Material type" which you will want to change to the type of paper you are using (For me this is Glossy Photo Paper) and you also want to check and see if you printer has a "Print Quality" setting as well. For this you want to change it to "Best" or "Highest". Once you have changed these settings on your actual printer you will need to start the printing process from your computer. So, Open the file you wish to print (Usually you do not want to print one copy per sheet, so my advice is to go to avery.ca and choose the label size you want in their templates section. and upload your canva design to here so you can create a file that has several of your labels on one sheet). Once you have this file, click on "Print", this will bring up the all familiar print menu:
Each printer and computer is different but in this menu you should be able to find the same paper or material and quality settings. On my mac this setting is under "Printer..." but I have also found this setting in Advanced before so you may need to do some clicking around.
Make the same changes you made directly on your printer "Glossy Photo Paper" and "Best" and you are ready to print!! Your labels may take longer to print but they will no longer smudge and they will come out far more crisp, dark and professional!
I hope this helps some of you save a whole lot of money and time! Please drop me some love in the comments if this helped you & make sure to share with your other business owner friends!
Come back to www.thebiggestwick.com/blog for more business, money saving & self care tips daily!
Lots of Love,
Karleigh Jennifer
The Biggest Wick Candle Co & The Million Dollar Mom Blog
Instagram: @themilliondollarmomblog & @thebiggestwicks
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