Preventing Problems with Your Custom Labels
Labels on consumer and business-to-business products carry your brand identity to market. What you put on the outside of that jar, can, box or bag matters. It is the only thing that differentiates you from your competition in the eyes of potential buyers. That’s why you probably spent time and energy designing custom labels that present your brand in its best light, with just the right graphics and messaging.
But custom labels is a broad term. It also includes the shipping and logistics tracking labels that help make sure your products get to where they need to be, whether that means retail stores, manufacturing facilities or other destinations.
But label issues can crop up. After all, what’s on the label isn’t very important if that label doesn’t remain on the package, or if it’s on-package performance compromises the image or the very distribution of your product.
Label Problems Can Be a Sticking Point
Fact: labels can malfunction. Whether it’s a production quality issue or simply the choice of the wrong label for an application, a defective label can be a source of print supply chain headaches.
A label’s corners or edges can “butterfly”—meaning they lift away from the surface, creating a worn, outdated appearance. If an ineffective adhesive is used, labels can even separate from the package, causing lost revenue and unhappy customers. There are a wide variety of other label problems as well, including smudging, sizing and spacing limitations that make it difficult to overprint needed information later.
Heading Off Custom Label Performance Problems
Label problems can be disruptive to your supply chain and bottom line, obviously. So the best way to deal with them is to avoid them in the first place. Knowledgeable label printers can help you do that, by asking the right questions in advance. Several considerations are critical in choosing the right type of label for a given purpose.
How to Choose the Right Label
-
Temperature
Think about the temperature and humidity that the package in question will endure throughout its journey through the supply chain. Will cold storage be involved, or will the product spend time in warm, dry environments? Will it move quickly from one extreme condition to another? Many label adhesives can fail when exposed to such temperature variations. Further, moisture can cause problems with adherence, durability and more.
-
Surface material
This one may seem obvious, but some label customers believe “if it’s sticky enough, it will stick to anything.” Not true. There is a clear difference between the stresses placed on a label affixed to a rigid surface and one that must adhere to a plastic bag or other flexible material. The incessant bending and re-positioning of the material itself can test the label’s adherence capability.
-
The accommodation of overprinting
Sometimes it can be difficult to configure the label in such a way that the preprinted elements are spaced properly to permit further imprinting at another point in the supply chain. While the main issue is spacing, the label’s ability to accept common inks at that point is also worth examination.
Custom Labels Are Only as Good as Your Print Provider
As a business owner, you’re not expected to be a label expert. But you will save yourself and your business considerable time, money and frustration if you align yourself with one. Superior Business Solutions would be an excellent choice. Not because I am part of the company, but because nearly 2,000 quality print vendors are.
That’s a resource few can match. We can tap this vast network of quality-verified printers to find the ones that offer just the right capabilities to provide the exact label needed. We know what questions to ask. They know what labels to provide. You know you can ship a product with confidence.
We’ve earned ISO certification and a second-consecutive “Best of Print and Digital” award from our customers. We know printing, and we know custom labels.
Contact Superior today so we can solve any label problem you may experience and allow our experience and resources to take some stress out of your workday.
