Stuck on Stickers and Labels

A refresher on Stickers and Labels and what they can be used for

Just recently we’ve revamped our Label and Sticker ranges on our online print ordering system and I thought it would be a good time to talk about them again. (Last time we did a blog post was back in 2015.)  So why use labels? Given that most retail stores will now use the barcode labels printed on the packaging of their products for till transactions, and people mostly email instead of send letters, you may wonder what use are stickers and labels. In two words, customer retention.

Customer Retention for every style of business

For a retail business, most of them will be selling products that others produce, and are sold by many other businesses just like them. The challenge becomes how to get the customer to return to that business over the first one they find in a google search. The way to put the reseller name in the customers mind is to stick a label on it with their details on it. It makes it easier for the customer to find when they need to get more of it. People are lazy and they will go to the first suggested place most times, so having it labeled with that business will increase the likelihood of the customer returning to it. A recent example we had of this is doing a range of price labels for hair care products. It’s easy enough to just put a price on it, but as much of it can be purchased from any salon (and some supermarkets), so how do you get the customer to come back to the original one? You put that salon’s brand on the price as well so it reminds them where they got it from.

Trades such as plumbers and landscape gardeners can make use of labels too. Completed an inspection or service, then put a label on it showing when it was done, who did it, and when it should be done again. Sometimes it makes sense to just put a general label with a job reference number so if there’s any follow up work needed to be done it’s easier to find the original work notes for it. (This can be especially good if it’s not the original owners that are needing the work done.) There’s nothing wrong with a bit of bragging too, so saying it was done by the business in a small inconspicuous way is a good way to remind them of who did the great job in the first place. While you could use cards or even things like fridge magnets, these tend to get lost over time where a sticker stays where it’s put.

If you’re a ‘white collar’ or service has a place for stickers as well. It’s more than just things like return address labels, though that is what most of them think of. If the business uses brochures supplied by others as part of their workload, you’ll see that most have spaces for putting the ‘resellers’ contact information on it so why not use a label there. Sometimes you’ll have printed something that needs a small correction but it’s not worth reprinting the whole document, so have a sticker printed to cover over the faulty bit with new information.

These are just a few ideas to consider for your business. Some other ideas include

• Instead of the high cost of printing paper bags with your company info, use stickers instead. And it’s a great way to seal it too.
• Unique serial numbers. Use our mail merge option available in our sticker range and we’ll generate a series of unique labels for you to use. 
• Add or replace a barcode on packaging so it works with your till system. We have three barcode fonts available in our designer studio, including support for UPC/EAN13. You can also use QR codes instead which our design studio system also supports.
• As a stick anywhere bit of reference information for the customer to use. For example a ratio mixing guide for chemicals, or routine user service instructions.
• You are not limited to just rectangles or squares. We carry a small range of circular labels in store. We can also source a range of more interesting sizes and shapes from our suppliers (stars, triangles, butterfly tags) but this will add additional charges over the normal listed prices.
• Make personalised gift tags or sealing labels that say so much about you.

What options do you have for labels and stickers

There are a lot of different options of labels out. The terms can be confusing if you’ve never brought them before. So let’s cover the basics.

Common Label ‘Papers’

This is the material that the stickers are printed on. The further down the list you go the more expensive they are per label and the longer it takes to have them made.

• Plain Paper – the one you most commonly use for stickers and labels.
• Coated – Like our flyers and rack cards you can get label paper that is glossy or has a silk finish to it.
• Vinyl or PVC – Plastic stickers designed to be waterproof but aren’t designed for outdoor use. 
• Transparent – Plastic labels like PVC but see through. Only thing to note is that all printing on it becomes semi-transparent as well unless white underprinting is used.
• Bumper or / Weatherproof – This is plastic which is designed to be exposed to the outdoors so won’t fail if it gets exposed to different weather conditions. They also have the highest fade resistance when exposed to New Zealand’s harsh high UV sunlight.

It’s good to remember that even plain paper labels are water resistant and will only start to fall apart when saturated with water and then scraped.

Common Label Terms

These describe how the label is intended to be used and if there’s special features that make them suitable for special situations.

• Permanent, Removable, Freezer Safe
  This describes the type of adhesive/glue used to make the label stick. Unless otherwise specified labels are ‘permanent’ but can be removed by using various adhesive disolvers or the application of extreme cold. Stickers that are described as Permanent mean they have much stronger adhesive and wont come off normal removal methods. Removable means you can peel the label off at any point in the future and there should be no or miniable glue left on the surface afterwards. Freezer Safe uses a type of adhesive that will not fail when exposed to sub zero temperatures. 
• Die Cut, Kiss Cut
  Die cut labels are cut down so that you have them as single labels trimmed to the finished size. You have peel the backing paper off to expose the adhesive. Kiss Cut labels are supplied on sheets or rolls and you remove the label off the backing paper. The die cut labels found in our sticker range are supplied loose so take a little more time to peel and stick. Our address label range comes in sheets of A4 so you’ll get anywhere from 2 on 88 on a sheet, you just need to bend the paper slightly for the label to be able to be removed.
• Crack Back, Slit Back, Split Back
  These all mean the same thing, labels where the backing paper is precut for easy removal so that when you bend the label it spits the backing paper exposing an edge to let you peel it off. This isn’t needed with kiss cut stickers/labels.
• Label Rolls
  This where the kiss cut labels are supplied on a roll of backing paper instead of sheets. They can be set up for use by hand, but more often are used for automated labeling equipment so you pick the orientation of the label to fit how the machine works. Because there’s a lot more setup in producing these types of labels, there’s a much higher setup cost and often it’s not economical until you’re ordering 1000 or more of a design.

How to create your own labels and stickers

You only need to head over to the Label page or the Sticker page on our website and you’ll be able to order your stickers and labels as you would order flyers. Select your size, paper options, and quantity then away you go. Upload a design or use our design studio to make something new.  But there’s a few things to be aware of.

• Where the slits on the back of our stickers may not be in the logical orientation to the printing. We also can’t always control where the slit will fall on a sticker.
• Labels are sold in sheet lots so the number will be rounded up to fill out a whole sheet. As this product is priced per A4 sheet
• Labels are designed with a 3mm white margin already applied, so you may see parts of the design fading or not there, this is intentional as with some labels there are parts of them we can not print on.
• If you want address or unique serial numbers on a label, design the label as it was the first of the list then attach a spreadsheet containing the rest of the labels part of the order (or you can email it to us separately.) We will generate the full series and send you back a few sample pages for you to check that the generated labels are correct.

This is only the start of what you can do with labels and stickers. If you want to find out more, give us a call, send us an email, or use our online quote systems and we can come back with solutions that will work for you.