How to automate shipping labels to save time and money

Manual shipping label generation is a hidden time sink that eats away at your fulfilment speed and profitability. If you’re still printing shipping labels by hand, jumping between carrier portals, and hoping for the best, it’s worth asking: how much time are you losing on each label? And what’s the real cost of all those small errors and delays?

Label automation isn’t just for massive retailers with enterprise tech stacks. In fact, it’s one of the fastest ways smaller and mid-sized eCommerce businesses can start working smarter. This guide walks you through what label automation really is, how it works, and how to get started without disrupting your current setup.

Let’s get straight into it.

When you sell a product online, the customer’s address, order details and shipping preferences are already captured. With automation, you don’t need to copy and paste those into a carrier portal or check which service is cheapest. A shipping automation platform connects your eCommerce store, your carriers, and your printer. The moment an order is received, the platform automatically generates the right label, pre-populating it with your customer details and carrier information.

It’s the difference between spending five minutes per order and fulfilling hundreds of orders in a single batch. Here’s a look at the difference between manual and automated shipping label generation.

1. Workflow challenge: Carrier selection

• Manual process: Check rates by logging into different carrier portals
• Automated process: View all rates in one platform and auto-assign the cheapest carrier

2. Workflow challenge: Label creation

• Manual process: Copy/paste customer details into carrier system
• Automated process: Label auto-generated and printed

3. Workflow challenge: Fulfilment speed

• Manual process: Dependent on staff availability
• Automated process: Streamlined and scalable

4. Workflow challenge: Risk of errors

• Manual process: High – human error from data entry
• Automated process: Low – accurate data pulled in directly

How to automate your shipping labels (step by step)

What you’ll need:

To start automating your shipping labels, you don’t need to rip out your existing systems or start from scratch. In fact, most businesses can get set up in a few hours with the following:

• Your eCommerce platform (like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce or Magento)
• Carrier account(s) – e.g. DHL, AusPost, NZ Post, Aramex, Sendle
• A shipping automation platform (like Starshipit)
• A label printer – thermal printers are best for high volume

Once you have these in place, it’s time to put your automation flow into action.

Step 2: Shipping platform applies shipping rules

Based on criteria like weight, destination, or order value, your shipping automation software applies pre-set rules (which you control) to choose the best shipping method. For example:

• Orders under 2kg within Australia → Sendle
• Orders over $100 → Free express shipping with AusPost
• All international orders → DHL Express with customs docs auto-filled

Step 3: Shipping label is automatically generated and printed

Once the carrier and service are selected, the label is created and sent directly to your label printer. There’s no need to copy order details to a carrier portal or manually initiate printing.

Bonus: Batch printing

For high-volume operations, batch printing is essential. Instead of printing labels one by one, you can generate many labels in a single run – perfect for busy sales periods or when working with multiple staff across the packing bench.

Step 4: Label is attached, parcel is picked up and delivered

From here, it’s standard procedure: attach the label, lodge the parcel, and let the carrier do the rest. Your fulfilment is now faster, more accurate, and easier to manage at scale.

1. Logging into multiple carrier portals

Manually managing labels often means jumping between carrier portals, logging in and out of different systems, and repeating the same steps over and over. It’s tedious, repetitive, and introduces room for error.

2. Copy-pasting customer addresses (and the risk of typos)

Even small mistakes – like a swapped digit in a postcode – can lead to delays, lost parcels, or failed deliveries. And the more you’re manually entering information, the more likely these mistakes become.

3. Manually checking rates or services

Without automation, there’s no easy way to compare carrier rates on the fly. You may end up choosing default or familiar options that aren’t the most cost-effective for that specific shipment.

4. Staff bottlenecks during peak periods

When sales spike, so does the pressure on your fulfilment team. If only one or two people are responsible for generating labels manually, they become a bottleneck for the entire dispatch process.

5. Increased chance of delays, wrong shipments, and support tickets

Mistakes made during label creation don’t just stay in the warehouse; they create knock-on effects for your customer experience. That means more support tickets, more refunds, and lower customer satisfaction.

1. Save time on every order

Manual label generation can take several minutes per shipment. Multiply that by 50, 100, or 500 orders a day and you're looking at hours of lost time – even from your most skilled team members. With automation, labels are created as soon as orders land. No carrier logins. No back-and-forth checking addresses or weights. Just pick, pack, print.

2. Reduce the chances of human error

Typos happen. The wrong shipping service gets selected. An address field is missed. And suddenly, your customer’s package is heading to the wrong suburb or sitting at a depot waiting on missing paperwork. Not only does this create a poor delivery experience – it can also mean added costs for redelivery, customer support, and even refunds. Automation reduces those risks by pulling verified data straight from your store and applying consistent logic to every order.

3. Save on shipping costs

When your team spends time checking shipping options, toggling between carrier portals, or making manual decisions about services, it slows down your entire fulfilment process. That wasted time adds up to wasted shipping costs, especially during peak periods, and often means more hours, more staff, or longer dispatch windows.

Label automation removes those bottlenecks. Your rules decide how each order is shipped, and labels are generated instantly – less decisions, less delays.

4. Simplify international shipping

International orders come with extra requirements – customs forms, HS codes, duties and taxes. Manually managing these for each order is time-consuming and error-prone. Automation handles the hard stuff: pre-filling HS codes, attaching documentation, and ensuring your packages don’t get held up at the border.

5. Scale without adding headcount

As your business grows, you shouldn’t need to grow your fulfilment team at the same rate. Label automation lets your existing team handle more volume, more complexity, and more carriers without getting overwhelmed. Whether you're processing 20 or 2,000 orders a day, your workflow stays lean and fast.

By integrating their Shopify store and DHL Express account with Starshipit, HiSmile was able to fully automate their label generation process. Orders flowed into Starshipit in real time, shipping rules were applied, and labels were generated in bulk, ready to print with just a few clicks. In the words of co-founder Alex Tomic, Starshipit made it easy to “import the orders, create the labels, and get orders out the door fast.”

The result? A streamlined fulfilment process that saves HiSmile hours of manual work every week, reduces errors, and helps the team focus on what they do best: growing the brand.

Next steps

Shipping label automation is one of those changes that pays off fast. It reduces your reliance on manual labour, helps avoid costly fulfilment mistakes, and ensures you’re not overpaying on carrier rates. Whether you're just starting out or scaling into new markets, label automation gives you the control and flexibility you need to grow.

If you're ready to stop wasting time and start shipping smarter, the next step is simple: Book a custom demo or start your 30-day free trial with Starshipit and get your labels automated.