How to customise Shopify shipping labels

Using customised shipping labels for your eCommerce store saves you valuable time and money.

Setting up automatic shipping systems means that you are much less likely to make mistakes in your order fulfilment process. That means faster delivery for customers, less undelivered parcels, and more time for your team to work on more important things.

But how do you actually set up custom shipping labels for your store?

We’ll take you through what shipping labels are, the benefits of doing it automatically, and steps to customise and automate your Shopify shipping labels.

Printing shipping labels for parcels (and even worse writing them out by hand!) can take up a lot of valuable time. They are a critical piece of an efficient fulfilment strategy so it is worth taking the time to set it up right.

Benefits of using shipping labels for parcels

Customising and automating shipping labels benefits you as much as your customer. The faster your delivery process, the more willing your customers will be to buy from you again! Let’s go through some of the benefits of custom Shopify shipping labels.

Helps in tracking customers’ package

Shipping labels help customers track their orders electronically. 83% of online shoppers expect regular shipping notifications on their order! Using a shipping app that automatically creates shipping labels and order numbers makes it super simple for customers to track their order in real time without you lifting a finger.

For example, sustainable fashion brand Bhumi Organic Cotton had a brick and mortar store as well as online sales. By automating their shipping notifications, they reduced parcel location inquiries by 50%.

Offers accurate information

Your courier will charge you for making more work for them. Wrong addresses, overweight parcels and illegible notes all make it impossible for them to deliver packages. Printed shipping labels (and a shipping integration that corrects addresses for you) will save you a lot of money over time.

Makes it look professional

Even if you don’t have custom packaging yet, a custom printed shipping label makes you look more professional. A handwritten label might seem like you are saving yourself money, but in the long run, trust in the professionalism of your brand is more important.

Helps streamline the process

It might not feel like it if you are just starting out, but saving a few minutes for each order fulfilment adds up!

A real life example of this is luxury plume brand The Feather.

They were sometimes getting over 100 orders a day but were still manually typing out addresses from their Shopify site. Many couriers will charge penalties for incorrect addresses which means money for you and time wasted for your customers!

Using Stashipit simplified their shipping labels and fulfilment process. This meant 80% less time on each order and less errors on simple things like addresses and labels.

It will also usually state the shipping class (e.g. same day delivery) and a short description if you are sending internationally. If they are set up with the right software, you can also include branding if it doesn’t cover the important details.

The exact price and details for shipping labels will ultimately be decided by your carriers.

Creating and printing Shopify labels

Once a customer has placed an order, it is time to create a shipping label in Shopify. If you have set it up correctly, order fulfilment will take no time at all!

If you don’t have a shipping integration like Starshipit, here are the basic steps for printing Shopify labels:

1. Go to your Shopify fulfilment dashboard for the individual order
2. Buy a shipping label from Shopify
3. Download and 🖨️ print the label (using your ordinary printer is fine, but we also wrote a list for the best printers for Shopify shipping labels
4. Attach label to the 📦 package
5. Arrange for a 🚚 courier pickup (or drop off at your local post office)

How to print labels for Shopify parcels: Top tip! When you are setting up Shopify shipping, you can print out a free test label to make sure your printer is working properly. Just go to Settings>Shipping and delivery>Shipping labels>Print test label.

If you make a mistake when customising your labels, you can simply void your shipping label and start over. For example, if you need to change the size of your label, you have 30 days to void it and get another one.

Steps to customise your Shopify shipping label

You can use the Shopify shipping label template to create custom shipping stickers for free.

Here are Shopify’s own instructions for using their template:

1. Go to shopify.com/tools/shipping-label-template
2. Enter your information into the online form
3. Click “Create shipping label”
4. Wait for the shipping label email from Shopify to arrive in your inbox
5. Click on the link “Get your shipping label now”
6. Click “Download PDF”
7. Print and use the label or email it to the customer with instructions to print and tape it to their parcel

This is not a bad place to start with custom printed shipping labels, however there are a couple of challenges once you start to scale.

Firstly, it takes time! Doing this for each individual order can add up when you start to get a lot of daily orders.

Next, you might not be getting the best shipping prices by using the default.

Another issue is that if someone has put their address in wrong, you could be charged penalties when it gets sent back.

Using a shipping integration means creating and printing Shopify labels means that it is simple and cost effective for both you and your customer.

Simple custom shipping labels with Starshipit

Shipping labels are crucial for your order fulfilment and customer satisfaction. Instead of manually processing every single shipping label, you can use Starshipit to automatically create, customise and print your Shopify labels (or any eCommerce platform you use!). Using the Starshipit shipping integration will reduce time, errors and money spent on printing while helping you deliver a first class purchasing experience for customers.

Stop printing custom labels the hard way and start using Starshipit.