Recommended sticky label printers for clothing retailers

[amjessey]

Hello everyone,

What are the recommended printers for clothing retailers who use Android devices?

We need to print to a sticky label that is approximately 60 mm x 40 mm, however, we are flexible regarding the size of the label we print to. We would need to print between one and dozens of labels at a time and then apply the sticky label to a piece of card which we then attach to the garment.  

I have found this article, however, it seems these printers are more suited to restaurants. 

Thank you

[Breffni]

Hey @amjessey,  thanks for raising this. 

We had a look at our article  How to Print Item Labels in our support centre and can confirm that the printers in question from the article you linked can print label sizes 40mm to 80mm, which is what you are looking for. 

These printers are geared towards restaurant use but they are adaptable and should print out anything that's put through as an order via open ticket so you could use them for your retail needs. 

Could you give me a bit more detail about what you will be printing out - are they barcodes specifically or something different? If they are barcodes we may be able to suggest an alternative solution here. 

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for your reply. 

[Sam_400º]

Hey @amjessey - yours business? 

are you using the retail software & want to print the product barcodes? The help arrival (with compatible printer list) is right here for that. 

I’m more food, so don’t need to create barcodes in this way but looking at the list they’re pretty limiting. I really like the brother 6x4 printer I’ve got that for shipping labels as it can use generic rolls of any size label & has air print in there too. Going with something not in the list would mean having to design your labels & & create the barcodes yourself though. 

[amjessey]

Hi @Sam_400º , fellow Super Seller, and @Breffni !

Thank you. Can you print to the brother 6x4 printer from Square Dashboard?

Our business is selling men's clothing. We are a mobile seller (so we do not have a bricks & mortar store but instead travel to the client's home/office). We also sell online. We hold stock and like any other clothing retailer, we need to print product barcode labels to attach to the stock items. Yes, we are a Square Retail Plus user. The only hardware we use currently is Square Terminal. We use Android devices and laptops with USB ports running Chrome OS (which runs Android apps and the Chrome browser).  

All our sales are managed in Square Invoices. I assume therefore we will be printing the labels from Square Dashboard (which is our go-to app on our laptops). I have had the first attempt and the first thing I notice is that there are just three label options available (shown below). Are these the only sizes we can print to? I don't think that will be a problem as I have done the test by printing to pdf (which I also include below) using the Dymo 1933085 format and that looks quite good I think. 

Dymo 1933085 label format

Of course, we would like something that is cost-efficient (I am thinking of paper costs mainly), quick and reliable. We don't hold a lot of stock at any one time; we will need to print our existing stock holding of approximately 250 units and then over the next six months I anticipate that we will be printing in the region of another 250 units; when we receive a delivery of stock the number of units in each delivery varies between 1 unit and 75 units.  

[amjessey]

Hi @Sam_400º and @Breffni 

Thanks for the recommendation for Brother 6x4 printer. I've had a look at the Brother QL-1110NWB / retailer (is this the one you are referring to?) and the Dymo LabelWriter 4 XL also and, yes, from what I can see the former is more versatile because it has a cutter so you can print any label height without changing out the paper reel, and it has wifi and Bluetooth connectivity (which is important in our business setup of Android and ChromeOS). It also looks like the cost of consumables (paper stock) is less costly than the Dymo.

What I don't fully understand is if we can print from Square Dashboard on ChromeOS to the Brother QL-1110NWB, as the only label options supported in Square Dashboard are the three shown in my screenshot from yesterday and there is no reference to compatible OS. Until we buy and install the printer and install it it's difficult to know if we will be successful with the setup. @Breffni, can you advise on this?

@Breffni, it might be helpful if all Square support documents provided examples of setups according to common specific needs of Square Sellers according to the type of seller (e.g. retailers, restaurants, service-based e.g. hairdressers or yoga classes) and their IT environment. Context is king! Also, providing links within the support documents to relevant posts (like this one) would be very helpful. I've also noticed in the support doc refers to "compatible" printers. I think what would be more accurate here is "supported" printers as other printers, e.g. the Brother QL-1110NWB are compatible, they're just not supported by Square. Would you agree?

On this point, regarding paper size, the closest paper for the Brother QL-1110NWB to 19 mm (H) x 64 mm (W) is DK22205 Tape, which is 62 mm wide. I assume this is close enough?   

Thank you.

[amjessey]

For those who use ChromeOS, I have also found online the MUNBYN ITPP941 Thermal Label Printer 300DPI, 4x6 Shipping Label Printer, which advertises itself as ChromeOS compatible. 

Thank you

[Breffni]

Thanks for the details @amjessey. 

Sticky Label Printers from your original message, need to be connected to the Point of Sale app by USB in order to print. Since you have the Square Terminal,  it sounds like this may not be the best fit. 

For the question of using an alternative solution with the Brother 6x4 printer, I'll have to leave that to Sam to explain his setup. 

But yes, with Square for Retail plus you can print labels directly from your Dashboard but it will need to be via one of the three printers listed if you can adapt to their sizing. 

For Dymo, we recommend: 

LabelWriter 550 

LabelWriter 550 Turbo 

• Label (direct thermal only): 

  • 19 mm x 64 mm

  • Will only work with DYMO authentic labels. 

For Zebra, we recommend: 

ZD410 

• Label (direct thermal only): 

  • 38mm x 25mm

  • Requires a label roll with a 1” diameter core.

From my experience, Avery printers and labels are harder to source so this would be the last option. 

I completely agree it would be beneficial if we had more content available with regard to examples and testing of each product. I'll pass this feedback on, hopefully, we can offer more resources soon, 

We don't unfortunately have a ton of options in terms of sizes with Square barcodes but there are some advantages of using Square for retail for your barcodes such as: 

• Upon selecting a location, when adding items to the list of labels to be printed, the quantity and specs of the item will all be there (name, variation, SKU, price, etc).
• Pulling the item information automatically, reduces the time you would spend copying and pasting Item information in 3rd party software for printing labels.

I hope this helps! 

[amjessey]

Hi @Breffni 

Ok, thanks for the update. When you say, "need to be connected to the Point of Sale app by USB in order to print", on what type of hardware/platform is the Point of Sale app being accessed on?

Thanks

[Sam_400º]

You owe me @amjessey 😂 enabled square retails & now my dashboard is sooo complicated as think I’ve got every single option in the world! 

I’ve not got a computer this week, so all this is just been testing on iPad & online dash, but….

When you create barcode labels in the online dash it simply outputs the format as a PDF. This in real terms means it doesn’t care about what the printer is at all. The Avery option creates an A4 sheet for regular printers to use the pre cut labels. The other two (dynamo & zebra) create the labels in the sizes for each. 

Using ANY direct thermal printer will work with these two settings as long as you have the right size label in & it’s comparable with your computer.

So, my brother one would work, a cheap eBay one would work etc….. you’d just need to make sure you have the correct sized labels.

@Breffni - the terminology used & naming specific printers seems really counter productive. Using more generic terms like Avery A4 sheet labels, Thermal Roll Printers could be far clearer even if the article still recommends particular models. 

When printing it would be better to say Avery A4 sheet, 19x64mm or 38x25mm without referring to a particular printer too. 

[amjessey]

Hi @Sam_400º 

Thank you for your reply. I've done some tests today too and I agree with your points.

I have plunged for the MUNBYN ITPP941 Thermal Label Printer 300DPI, 4x6 Shipping Label Printer, mainly because of its support of ChromeOS. Buying direct from Munbyn, its list price in the UK at £ 187.99, but right now it's discounted to £ 139.99.

I will update this thread after I have received delivery of the printer.

Thanks

[Breffni]

Thanks for testing @Sam_400º.

And for the feedback, I've added some additional info to my post! 

@amjessey, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team directly too, we do have teams dedicated to Square for Retail specifically who can run through these options with you in real-time. 

[amjessey]

Hi @Breffni 

Yes, thanks I may contact the support team for further advice. On that point, it would be good if the support team had a presence in Seller Community so we could open a support ticket right here in the thread, which then plays out in the thread. That way any new helpful information that is learnt would be shown straight away in the thread, and it would remove the need to copy and paste the pertinent parts over from email to Seller Community after the case is closed, as is the case now.

Thanks   

[Sam_400º]

@amjessey this is a really good point, it can be so disheartening to try & work though issues (both our own or helping others) for us/them to then go through it all (with probably the same suggestions) raising a ticket. 

If a thread could be turned into a ticket, either with the support team having a link to see what's been said or a system generated copy. Then it could save a lot of peoples patience from going though it all again when so much will have been tried. 

[k_atie]

Hey @Sam_400º and @amjessey, just stepping in for Alegra here. 

Thank you so much for your feedback. This is a great idea and I'll be sure to pass over your comments to our team to smoothen your experience with our customer success team. In the meantime, it could be worth mentioning the interactions you've had on the Seller Community to our Customer Success team, as they do have access to the Community and can search for specific threads. That may save a bit of time while working with our teams! 😊

Let me know if there is anything else I can help with!

[amjessey]

For this Munbyn printer, the paper closest to the 64 mm x 19 mm dimensions of the Dymo 1933085 label format that the printer supports I have found in the UK is from Flexi Labels. 

[Sam_400º]

Hey Alex, I use a TD4550 printer but not with the Square software. 

personally I’d go for a zebra printer listed over the brother QL series as they only take special rolls of labels & can work out to be really expensive! 

do you know if you can run retail/restaurant/regular pos all on the same account? I could set up the retail to test it out with the printer I’ve got. While it’s an expensive one (can be found cheaper than the list price) it’s one that would any label you can throw at it if it’ll work with the square dpsoftware.

[amjessey]

Hi @Sam_400º 

I'm not sure if it is possible to run retail/restaurant/regular pos simultaneously. @Breffni , do you know? What I do know is it is possible to run Retail Plus and Appointments simultaneously (because this is what we do for our business).

Thanks

[Sam_400º]

Hey Alex - I've got everything running now apart from appointments & they all seem to be working! Nice touch that they can run in parallel & still use the regular POS app too 👍🏻

[amjessey]

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