Like Printing Money With A Thermal Printer

If you sell stuff online, you have to ship stuff. If you have to ship stuff you have to buy shipping labels (or stamps – how ancient is that). And if you buy shipping labels, you Have to Print them and you have to buy ink. All of that costs money! Over and over again, money.

So what does this post have to do with the title “Like Printing Money”? Well, maybe the title should read “It’s Like Printing With Money”, because every time I print a label it’s like I’m shoving dollar bills into that printer and a label is coming out. It Cost Me Money to print a label. But “It’s Like Printing Money” sounds better and maybe that’s why your reading this. Ha!

Now if you are like me then you want your business to make as much profit from every dollar coming in. That means Squeeeeeezing your cash flow. For example: We, my wife and I, rarely if ever buy Boxes or Packing Materials. God knows how much money this saves us. And as one of our online stores is a Vintage Store, and one a consignment store, much of our inventory is low or no cost to us. Not having to buy much of our inventory saves money.

Yet we still have to print labels for everything we ship. While we get very good discounts on the shipping label rates, the labels still have to come out of our printer – all I have to do is shove money Into It for a label to come out. For years we have used inkjet printers with sticky labels. And each label has to be covered with clear tape to keep the ink from running if it gets wet. At 2 labels per label sheet, it is reliable but not cheap. Printer Ink is crazy expensive for what you get, and the Refilled Ink Cartridges are a bit cheaper but quite unreliable. So we were always wondering, is there a Cheaper way to print labels?

For years we had heard about the wonders of Thermal Printers that many other sellers have raved about. They said Thermal Printers are fast, easy to use, save time AND save them MONEY ! However we had chosen to stick with good old ‘reliable’ inkjet printing. Chicken Right !?

Until Now

One day in the not to distant past, I decided to look into the Wonderful World of Thermal Printers. For no other reason, it was To Save Money. Not how fast they were or how pretty the labels were, but just to squeeze as much profit out of each sale as we could. So I needed to answer a few questions:

1. Are Thermal Printers Expensive?

2. Are Thermal Printers Dependable and Reliable?

3. Is the end product, Printed Labels, Cheaper than how we currently print labels?

Then and only then would I make a decision to switch to a Thermal Printer, or stay with what had worked for literally decades. Now some who know me personally may say that I over think, over research, over compare everything I buy, for our business or my own personal use and you know what I say to that? Mind your own business! It’s actually something I like to do. It gives me peace of mind and a feeling of calmness when I am inputting or sliding my credit card to make an important purchase. So then, how are we printing our labels now?

We looked at the prices of Thermal Printers (1) and found that even though the prices were all over the place, we could easily afford one. After extensive research, which I of course took care of (2), median priced Thermal Printers properly maintained were indeed reliable and would hold up to our daily usage. And finally on a cost per label basis, including the initial purchase price of the printer, (3) we would cut the cost of our inkjet printed labels by at least 40%.

And so we bought a Thermal Printer and after 2 months of use, we are quite happy that we did. The machine works well and was set up with no problems. Each label prints ‘lightning fast’, and look great. Each label has very good adhesive qualities and do not require clear tape over them to remain safe from the elements. We are happy and $aving Money! Hooray.

Bottom Line: If you are thinking of buying a Thermal Printer for the first time, I hope our experience will help you in your decision. No longer do I feel like I’m printing labels on dollar bills.