In the previous post, I explained postage printing using Scrobbld to speed up the process of dispatching your packages. Although the instructions were specific to UK sellers, they can easily be modified to almost any stamp printing software (such as USPS Click ‘n’ Ship). In this post I want to cover how to automate the dispatch of your parcel or package using Scrobbld and dedicated label printers (e.g. they print labels, and not much else). There are numerous advantages to printing labels using a thermal label printer; it saves paper as there is no paper cutting required, you won’t need to replace expensive inks (since there is no ink - the labels are heated much like a fax machine) and labels often come as sticky papers so there is no glueing involved in the process. Label printers are cheap and labels are reasonably priced. Moving away from A4, inkjet and laser printing will save you a lot of money and time in the long term.

Now if you were going to ask me what label printer to use I would have to strongly recommend the Brother QL series. They work for years without any maintenance, I have used my printer for about 3 years on a daily basis now without any problems, and it forms an essential part of my packaging process.

Brother QL-500 Label Printer

For the rest of this post I will give you some pointers on how to print your order dispatch labels using Scrobbld. From the previous post you can see how to export your orders as a CSV file.

The first step is obviously to purchase the label printer. Secondly, if you bought the QL series, install the P-touch software that comes with the Brother label printer or any other software specific to your label printer (though I haven’t tested others out, I’m sure they are all reasonably similar). When everything’s up and running, goto the ‘File’ menu, and select Connect -> database. Select your CSV file (the one you downloaded from Scrobbld, where you exported your orders) and there you have your addresses imported into P-touch.

P-touch software

The next step is easy; just drag and drop the address fields to your customized location on the label on the top menu. Do this for all the fields that you would like to see in the resulting printed label. Now you are ready to print out all the addresses for that batch, just note that you can save the template for later so this process is only done once. There might be easier ways of doing this so please share your thoughts, and let us know if you are using any other label printers you are happy with.