If your business sells goods online, or if your business deals with regularly sending items in the post, you will be familiar with how time and cost consuming the dispatch process can be. There are many ways you can make the procedure as efficient as it can possibly be, but there is one method which stands out; integrated labels. Optimising your packing process is vital if you are scaling up or hoping to grow your business to deal with an influx of orders.

Spending too much time on the logistics and process of dispatching your goods will take your energy and focus away from sales and marketing, and customer service- ultimately holding your business back. Integrated labels are one way of making this entire process more seamless in a cost and time efficient manner.

What are integrated labels?
Integrated labels are self-adhesive labels which are printable in nature and are embedded within an A4 sheet of paper. This sheet of paper can contain one single label or multiple label. Single labels often just contain the delivery address, and multiple labels offer the choice to include a returns address or even additional marketing information such as contact information and social media links. Naturally, printing all the required information on one sheet is much quicker, and uses less resources, meaning this process is cheaper and is more environmentally friendly. It is also eliminates risk of human error as there’s no need to mix and match labels with invoices- all that needs to be done is print the label once, stick the label, include the invoice, then send.

Incorporating integrated labels into your internal process doesn’t have to prevent you from getting your standard marketing material in your package. You can easily brand your labels to match your company brand and your other printed materials. You don’t have to comply with any standard design. From this perspective, integrated labels can be beneficial for brand awareness.

Integrated labels also enhance your overall customer service, as your buyer will be sent a form as part of the integrated label.This form allows your customer to review the details of their purchase and your business’ details if they wish to get in contact you after their purchase is completed. The buyer is given all of this information without your staff having to print separate documents, and spending a significant amount of time on unnecessary tasks. There is absolutely no need to print a separate form, everything will be included into your integrated label design.

Integrated labels have a high quality output, as everything which is printed is designed for a specific size and layout. This means you will have vivid images, clear text, and crisp barcodes on one document from almost any laser or inkjet printer.

Why are integrated labels better than label printers?

Integrated labels are much cheaper than purchasing a dedicated printer to print your labels, and purchasing constant refills for said printer. What is more, with integrated labels, i.e. printing labels to your regular printer, means you can print labels in bulk from multi-channel selling software like Linnworks. However with a label printer like a Dymo label printer for instance, you can only use Linnworks software to print in bulk. Otherwise you would have to manually create your own spreadsheets to import and export in bulk from ebay or your own eCommerce site.

All in all, integrated labels can enhance your packing and dispatched process and help you to scale up without any worry of your dispatch process holding you back.