So i am starting up my own company here very shortly. And we decided we wanted to try and print out own labels instead of pay a company a few hundred dollars for labels. So we got a nice HP Color Laser printer and ordered (we thought) really good quality labels from onlinelabels.com. We have had a little trouble getting the labels aligned right...which i would eventually figure out anyways cause i did fix our 60 ML labels so they fit perfectly. But our main problem now is that when we put the label on. Lets say i put the bottle sitting face down in my middle consol of my car or just in my pocket. If it rubs up against anythnig...even if its not that rough. The color starts coming off....and it comes off really easy. I can barely scratch my finger on the label and the color comes off. Dose anyone else have this problem, or has anyone else used a laser printer to print off there own labels???
What kind of labels are you using specifically? Are they paper or poly?
The ones we seem to be having trouble with are the "all weather polyester" labels. We had it happen with the regular all weather polyester and the silver all weather polyester.
The paper will probably hold the ink better. I don't know about everybody else, but personally, as long as the juice tastes good I could give a shit what the label looks like.
And ya i agree 100 percent, but when your starting a new company and a new line of juice...a big part of it is making it look good and promoting. Im not yet trying to promote super heavy cause we are still a month or so away from launching. But as far as the juice being good, well i have a decent local following and people seem to love my juice so far. I have been working my ass off for over a year now and i put a lot of pride into my flavors and making sure they are delicious. So i cant wait to get on reddit a little more and get my name a little better known on here before i promote. Dont wanna make anyone mad about promoting when no one knows who i am.
I feel like it must be ink related. I currently printing on heavier paper mail labels, they seem to hold up a bit better than standard paper labels. I dislike paper, but it's just a trial run. I need to research, if I find anything out I'll let ya know.
Check your printer manual to see if polyester is compatible.
Check your printer settings - fuser temp may need to be higher - too high and the stock will melt to the fuser and destroy your printer.
Consider having them done professionally. It might be a little more pricey but they will look better, last longer and save you the hassle.
I am currently going through this exact same problem. My next step is to go through sticklerusa.com. Cheaper than doing it yourself ( if you order enough.) Might be worth checking it out to avoid some frustration. Edit: Forgot to mention that clear coat helps with the running colors 👍
Well if we cant get this problem fixed we are going to have to spend some money on a few thousand labels. We are most likely going to go through wizard labels if we go that route. The only downside to them is that if i want 3000 labels (they will only cost 13 cents a piece) but i can only get one size. And all 3 of my bottles have different size labels as of now. So i could potentially use the same size for the 30 and 60 and have a different size for the 15. But cause of the price of our juice i dont really think we are going to sell many 15. Its going to be mostly 30 and 60 and i dont want to spend 400$ on labels for 15 ml if mi never going to use them.
It's a little time consuming. But I print on paper labels, then tape over them with label sized clear stickers.
You could use tape, but then you need to cut
But I'm only selling 30 bottles (or less, usually less) a week
But it's very professional looking, won't smudge or scratch, and liquid wipes right off. I also only have a cess to a standard ink jet printer
Did you set the paper type on your printer? If it thinks it is printing on normal paper and you fed in labels, the toner won't stick correctly like you describe. If not, your printer might just not work well with the labels you used.
I dont think i did ..... how do i go about setting the printer to certain print types?? I actually emailed the company about this and they told me to change my printer settings to labels, glossy, or thick paper. But honestly i have never gone that in depth to a printer before to know how or what i need to do to change the settings of the printer.
Usually when you insert the paper tray, the screen on the printer itself will prompt you for paper type - it will probably say something like "plain" and give you the option to change type. Labels or Glossy will probably work better with the media you are using. What model of printer do you have?
I actually figured out how to change the settings once im in Adobe and i press print it brings up the print screen and there is an options tab you click and i can change it to "labels". So i will try that one first and see how it comes out and go from there.
Hey man! We use onlinelabels at TBD. Went through a lot of the different options before we found one that worked well enough.
The problem with the weatherproof polyester for us was the smearing and also the adhesive was not strong enough for plastic bottles. Came off very easily. What worked best for us was the white gloss. Good strong adhesive & no smearing. The only downside was after some time, especially with plastic bottles since they're squeezed, the labels will get wrinkled. In fact they still do, since we don't outsource our label printing. We're waiting on a redesign to finish before getting 1000's of labels printed.
Anyhow, give those a try and hopefully they work out for you to get started. If you're going for a wholesale model instead of direct-to-consumer like us I highly suggest getting some professional labels done. Looking good on the shelf next to 15 other juice companies is VERY important for a wholesale model.
Good luck!
Yes this seems to be the problems that we are having as well. So basically i shouldnt worry about getting the polyester and just shoot for a good gloss laser labels?? The labels also do get wrinkled on the plastic bottles but thats seems to happen with almost any label i have ever seen and im not so worried about that. Because by the time the label looks like that the juice is probably gonna be mostly gone haha. But yes we are possibly thinking about going through wizard labels down the road once we have more capital and we see if we are going to do well in business. But i will def check into the non weatherproof ones and see if that helps at all.
Yeah I say go for the gloss. The glossy ones are pretty much weatherproof. As long as you aren't running them under water/putting them in water or spilling 10ml+ of juice on them they will be fine. Will wrinkle, but most people don't seem to mind since as you said the juice is mostly gone by the time that happens.
I hear ya, starting a juice business is pretty rough. There's a lot of expenses you don't think about when you're starting out and it really makes it hard to break even/turn a profit until you've been up and running for 6+ months. You make money, but all of that goes right back into the business to improve things and grow further.
Yup your absolutely right as far as expenses go. But fortunetly with getting wholesale accounts and what not i have found pretty awesome prices on most stuff and have not had a killer start up cost so far. So i really think we are gonna do great. We have a little bit of a local following here in NJ. And people seem to love my flavors, im super excited and stoked to get on the market and get some good reviews and excited and happy customers !!
question, im trying to print labels on onlinelabels.com as well and it is telling me my item is not ready to be approved? i just lined up the logo i have and tried ordering 1 sheet of labels as a test, maybe the artwork file must have specific dimensionS?