How Barcoding Supplies Can Help You Save Costs After COVID-19

As the economy slowly reopens and companies look to minimize financial damage from COVID-19, many businesses will be looking for ways to reduce costs while operating more efficiently than ever before.

One area that’s easily overlooked but should be a focus of cost-saving efforts is barcode labeling. The first instinct for most businesses is to treat barcode labels and printing supplies like commodities for which you just go for the cheapest up-front cost.

But now is an important time to remember that using cheap, low-quality print media and supplies can actually cost you much more money in the long run.

Using substandard labels and supplies that aren’t certified for your specific barcode printer and applications can create several serious problems. These can not only drive up costs but also bring your scanning operations and business-critical processes to a halt.

The most expensive headache is premature printhead replacement. Printheads are consumables that need to be replaced from time to time, but they’re expensive and often cost hundreds or even more than a thousand dollars.

The last thing you want to do is burn through your printheads too quickly, but low-quality labels often cause this because their cheap materials are too abrasive and create excessive printhead wear. They also tend to create print quality issues and force the usage of excessive print darkness to compensate for poor print quality, and that uses up your printheads unnecessarily.

To avoid this, use certified label media and ribbons that are designed specifically for your printer and application. They should be carefully matched to your requirements to ensure proper print quality and minimize print darkness and printhead wear, so you can potentially save thousands of dollars per year in replacement costs.

Another common problem with cheap and uncertified labels is barcode scanning failure. To ensure successful scans, it’s important to use the right label facestock, topcoat, and printer ribbon (if applicable) to match your usage and scanning requirements.

If you’re not using the right supplies, you could encounter print quality issues or your labels could end up fading, getting scratched or smudged, or otherwise becoming unscannable because they can’t withstand your scanning environment.

When this happens, barcode scans fail, scanning processes get interrupted, and labels have to be reprinted and replaced. Either way, it’s wasted time and cost that could be invested in more productive and profitable activities.

The best way to avoid wasted time and cost is to invest in higher-quality, certified supplies that are designed for your specific application. This will save you more in the long run by minimizing downtime and lost assets from scanning failures.

Finally, there’s label adhesion failure. Cheap, low-quality labels are typically designed more for office use or basic applications rather than the real world of warehousing, inventory, and shipping.

This means cheap labels can easily fall off because they don’t have the right adhesives to match your surfaces and materials. They also don’t have specialized adhesives to withstand common environmental factors such as abrasion, extreme temperatures, moisture, or chemicals.

Without the right adhesive, your labels could fall off and you could be facing lost assets, missing inventory, and an inability to fulfill orders or production requirements.

To avoid adhesive failures and all the problems we’ve discussed, your best move is to buy certified and high-quality supplies. Specifically, we strongly recommend Zebra labels and supplies because they’re the highest quality in the barcoding industry. Zebra labels are pre-tested and produced with application-specific materials to ensure reliable scanning and adhesion while minimizing printhead wear.

Contact us now to learn more about Zebra supplies and get pricing and recommendations for your business.