From Inkjet to Thermal Printer: Why We Overhauled Our FBA Label Setup

For over a year, we printed every Amazon, Kaufland, and eBay shipping label on a regular inkjet printer onto A4 sheets, cut them out, and taped them onto the box. At ten shipments a day, that’s not a problem. At several hundred a month, it becomes a real time sink.

What bothered us about the old setup

Three things kept coming up: ink running out right when ten labels were due at once. Scissors and a glue stick as a fixed step for every single package. And barcodes that failed to scan at Amazon goods-in on the first try because of slightly crooked cut edges — with delays in putaway as a result.

Switching to thermal printing

Since we switched to the LabelJet 300, that entire extra step is gone. The software automatically recognizes the Amazon label format, and the printer delivers the label already trimmed to size, ready to apply — no ink, scissors, or glue needed.

The thermal paper itself mattered to us too: with the PrintRoll thermal paper rolls, the print stays sharp and legible even after a few days in storage, which wasn’t always the case with cheaper no-name rolls.

Is switching worth it?

At very low shipment volumes (under 20 packages a month), the purchase probably doesn’t pay off yet. But once you’re regularly shipping double digits per week, the time saved per label quickly adds up to several working hours a month — without even counting the error rate from crooked-cut labels.