As an online retailer running a Shopify store, shipping labels are crucial to your daily routine. With each product purchased, you have to print a new shipping label, as each product has a unique shipping label. Products may never leave the carrier warehouse without Shopify shipping labels. That small piece of paper contains the information your carrier needs to efficiently process and ship packages to their destination.

Although highly important, manually creating and printing is a daunting and tedious task prone to error. Fortunately, Shopify allows you to create shipping labels automatically for free. This article will help you learn everything you need about Shopify shipping labels and how to create and print them.

What is a Shipping Label?

A shipping label is a document or card displaying essential shipping information such as the recipient’s and sender’s addresses, carrier information, shipping method, and tracking numbers, among other information. The shipping components allow efficient and prompt shipment of packages to their consignees.

Understanding what to print is as important as learning how to print shipping labels. If you get the components of a shipping label wrong, it will most likely result in lost revenue, inefficient handling, or even prevent package delivery entirely.

Why is Creating Shipping Labels in Shopify Important?

Before learning how to print free shipping labels on Shopify, you must first understand the importance of shipping labels and their components for your business. Shipping labels ensure proper handling and tracking of packages during the shipping journey by accurately providing the following information to carriers:

Identification: carriers can quickly and easily identify a package and delivery destination.

Compliance: carriers can comply with special instructions and requirements placed on certain packages.

Save on costs: Shopify shipping labels can help online retailers save on costs by minimizing delivery errors.

Efficiency: the labels facilitate a streamlined shipping process that makes it faster and easier for all parties involved.

Tracking: Customers and shippers can track packages due to the tracking information contained on shipping labels.

Shipping labels on Shopify also help merchants streamline an order fulfillment process by automatically adding Shopify packing slips and customs forms. Apart from tracking, these shipping labels also make other post-purchase processes like returns and insurance efficient. Both merchants and customers can quickly benefit from shipping insurance apps like Captain Shipping Insurance, resulting in increased brand loyalty.

How to Create and Print a Shipping Label on Shopify?

Before getting into how and where to print a shipping label, there are some prerequisites that you need to set up. These prerequisites include configuring shipping settings, selecting a shipping carrier, and accurately setting up product dimensions and weight.

Prerequisite Settings

Learning how to print shipping labels on Shopify is a straightforward process that starts in your Shopify dashboard.

Configure shipping settings: Once on the dashboard, head to the ‘Settings’ tab and select ‘Shipping and Delivery’. On the shipping setting, define your shipping aspects, such as shipping zones, methods, and rates. Carefully define all the required settings before moving on to the next step

Choose shipping carriers: Next, you must choose the right shipping carrier for your store. Shopify integrates with popular carriers like USPS, UPS, and FedEx. Select the carrier that best aligns with your budget and shipping requirements.

Once you’ve chosen your carrier, you will have to connect them to your Shopify store so you can use their shipping services. Each carrier has unique requirements and instructions for connecting its services. Follow them, then proceed.

Set up product dimensions and weight: Head to the product settings page in your Shopify dashboard and input the correct dimensions and weight for each product.

Accurately measuring product dimensions and weight is essential to creating accurate labels and calculating shipping rates. If your store sells a wide range of products, it is recommended that you get a digital scale and tape to measure each item accurately.

Create custom packaging options: Shopify also allows merchants to create custom packing options if they offer products of different sizes and weights. To use this feature, head over to the shipping settings page, select ‘Packages’, and define each custom package’s dimensions and weight.

Create Shopify Shipping Labels

Now that your store is configured correctly, you can make shipping labels free on Shopify. The platform automatically generates a shipping label once an order is placed. The newly created shipping label will contain all the information you set up in the prerequisite stage.

To access the shipping label, follow the following steps:

1. Head over to the order details page in the dashboard

2. Click on the ‘Create Shipping Label’ button

3. Review the added information.

4. If the information is up to par, click ‘Create Label’.

Use Shopify’s Free Shipping Label Template

Shopify also provides new users with a shipping label template to get started as soon as possible without the hassle of using the Shopify Flow workflow. The platform allows store owners to create a workflow manually or use a pre-made template.

Online retailers can use the Shopify shipping label template to create a unique Shopify return label and shipping label for any of their products. The platform offers several workflows that allow you to create draft shipping labels based on product, weight, country, or customer-specific shipping method. The workflow templates use triggers, actions, and conditions with filled-in placeholder data, so ensure you enter the values you want to use

You can find these templates on the Shopify help center, along with steps on how to use them.

Print Out a Shipping Label

To print a shipping label on Shopify, follow the following steps:

1.  Head over to the Shopify admin page and click on ‘Orders.’

2. Choose the number of orders you want to generate labels for. Keep in mind that you have to buy labels in your Shopify admin. 

3. Select the option to create a shipping label in your unfulfilled section.

4. Go to print label from the fulfillment area.

5. Choose the Shopify shipping label printer you want to use.

6. Select your paper size. You can use:

a) 4” x 6” for Shopify label printer

b) 8.5” x 11 for Shopify desktop printer

7.  Print your shipping label

Ensure that you use high-quality printers and strong adhesives to ensure the labels are readable and securely attached to the product’s packaging. Shopify also allows merchants to combine printing shipping labels with custom forms and packing slips. You can use this feature with a printable shipping label template to print labels, packing slips, and forms conveniently in one place.

Managing Shipments Tracking on Shopify

Once you have your shipping labels ready, it is time to give your customers an exceptional post-purchase experience as they await delivery. Shipment tracking is an essential service that gives customers peace of mind and promotes loyalty.

ParcelPanel provides one of the leading tracking solutions for eCommerce. The app seamlessly integrates with Shopify stores to provide stellar post-purchase experiences for customers. ParcelPanel boasts 2.3+ billion shipments tracked from over 1,000 carriers.

Although Shopify offers a standard tracking service for customers, the platform is limited in tracking features. ParcelPanel gives you a branded tracking page and multiple other features, including:

• Multilingual tracking pages
• 24/7 customer support
• Powerful analytics from which customers can get real-time sync and tracking updates
• Auto-send shipping notifications to enhance brand visibility

You can replicate ParcelPanel’s multi-language feature in your store by installing Langwill. Give your customers the ability to shop in their local languages and currencies.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this guide helped you create and print shipping labels for your store. Both new and seasoned online retailers need shipping labels to streamline shipping processes and grow their businesses. Although a shipping label or Shopify packing slip template is easy and quite a time saver, it is best to learn how to generate important documents from scratch. This way, you can be sure of your ability to create accurate shipping labels for any product type and destination.

So, take the time you need to master shipping label creation for your store, and both you and your customers can enjoy efficient shipping and post-purchase experiences.