A Quick Guide to Choosing the Right Labels for Your Warehouse

In nearly every warehouse, it’s essential to use barcode labels to identify, manage and track inventory. But it’s also critical to label all your shelves, racks, bins, totes, and containers, so you can organize and track your storage locations and you can locate, pick, and replenish items as efficiently as possible.

However, labeling all of your warehouse shelves, containers, and locations typically requires specialized labels for the different types of items you’re labeling. For example, you might need labels with different types of adhesives, depending on whether you’re labeling a cardboard box, a metal shelf, or a plastic bin or tote.

As your warehouse expands or you need to move items and locations, it’s important to keep your storage properly identified and organized. In such cases, you may need labels with multi-removable adhesives, allowing you to cleanly remove a label from a shelf or container and reapply it to another storage location or bin.

Your environment is also a critical factor, since your warehouse might be storing products in cold storage or refrigeration, or they might be exposed to moisture, chemicals, or need to meet FDA requirements for indirect food contact. Since the temperature at which you apply and later use your labels is also an important factor, you may need to make sure that your application and service temperature ranges are within a given label’s ranges.

You might also need to keep your print speed and print quality requirements in mind as well since different labels with different types of materials are better suited for faster printing or higher print quality than others.

The good news is that, even though there are potentially hundreds or thousands of different combinations of labeling needs and characteristics in your warehouse, there are specialized labels already designed and manufactured for every use case. And, in most cases, you’ll only need a few types of these labels to handle everything in your warehouse.

At SK&T, we partner with Zebra Technologies as the barcode label printing provider for our warehouse and distribution center customers, and even though Zebra has over 5,000 combinations of labels and printing supplies to meet very specific requirements, our experts typically only need to recommend a few types for most warehouses and distribution centers.

Let’s take a look at some of those label options and where they’re typically used.

General-Purpose Inventory Labels

For indoor, general-purpose labeling of corrugate, plastic or metal packaging material, you might only need a basic paper label with a permanent acrylic adhesive. But there are still a few types of these labels, depending on whether your label needs to be coated for potential indirect food contact or it needs resistance to more extreme temperatures.

Here’s a quick look at Zebra’s Z-Perform labels, which are typically a good fit for these requirements and where high print speeds aren’t required:

Shelf, Bin and Tote Labeling

For labeling of warehouse shelves, bins and totes, we typically recommend one of several different Zebra Z-Select or Zebra Specialty labels. They’re not only great for labeling storage containers and locations, but they’re premium labels that are specially coated to enable high print speeds and provide optimal print quality.

Zebra’s 4000T and 4000D removable labels feature a removable acrylic adhesive that allows the labels to be removed cleanly, without damaging the label or the surface. This way, you can reuse your shelves, bins, or totes for another purpose and potentially apply new labels to them. They work great on corrugate and metal, and they also work well when applied to paper and plastics, but you should test them on your paper or plastics applications first.

If you want great removability across different types of surfaces and/or you also want to reuse your labels, then we typically recommend Zebra’s 8000T multi-removable or 8000T Ultra-Removable labels, which allow frequent application and removal of your labels. This is great for situations where you might need to change your storage layout in your warehouse but you don’t necessarily want to move your bins or totes around. Instead, you can move and swap your labels.

Here’s a quick overview of Zebra’s Z-Select label offering, including a couple of additional options for cold storage or refrigeration and more extreme temperature ranges:

Here is a summary of a few Zebra Specialty labels, including multi-removable labels and a couple of high-tack options, but keep in mind that there are many more solutions available in this Specialty category:

Color Labels

A great way to organize your warehouse and provide visual cues for your warehouse associates is to add color to your labels. For example, you might color-code a particular aisle or area of your warehouse, so all shelves, containers and/or inventory items have the same color on their labels.

Zebra produces a series of IQ Color labels, which are bright white, smooth paper labels with a pre-defined zone that allows a Zebra printer to print and add vibrant color to your labels on demand.

Here is a quick look at the Zebra IQ Color label offering:

Labels for Chemical, Abrasion and Outdoor Resistance

If you’re labeling and storing products, containers, or storage locations outdoors or where chemical exposure, moisture or abrasion could be an issue, then you may need a highly specialized label.

The right label may require materials, coatings and adhesives that will handle everything from extreme temperatures to rubbing and scratching, and make sure your labels don’t fade and don’t get smudged or damaged.

This is where you’ll likely need to use a synthetic label made of polypropylene or polyolefin rather than paper, and it may require matte or gloss face stock, a specialized permanent or removable acrylic adhesive, and other characteristics.

There are many different types of specialty labels for these purposes, and we can’t get into every possible option here, but Zebra’s Supplies Selector Guide and our experts at SK&T can help you quickly identify the right solution.

The Importance of Direct Thermal and Thermal Transfer Labels

Depending on your needs and the type of label that matches your requirements, you might need a direct thermal or thermal transfer label, and that means you’ll need to use a direct thermal or thermal transfer label printer as well.

A direct thermal label is often a good fit for simpler applications and requirements, including indoor environments and cases where your printed label image doesn’t need higher durability or longer life.

However, if your environment or use case demands more durability and longer life for your labels and printed image, then you’ll likely need to use a thermal transfer label, and that means you’ll need to match it with the right thermal transfer ribbon. But companies such as Zebra already provide a recommended ribbon for each label they produce, so it’s easy to simply match the right combination and get on your way.

How to Select the Right Solution and Get Expert Help

To start finding the right labels for your warehouse needs, download our Zebra Supplies Selector Guide and contact our barcoding and labeling experts at SK&T for a free consultation and professional recommendations. We’re always happy to provide tips and advice, walk you through any key considerations in your label choice, and provide the solutions you need.