The blog post is an in-depth guide on how to choose the appropriate printers for printing invoices, packing slips, delivery notes, and shipping labels in WooCommerce. It covers the different types of printers available, their advantages and disadvantages, and how to choose the right printer for each document type.
PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, Delivery Notes & Shipping Labels Plugin for WooCommerce plugin helps you customize and print invoices, packing slips, delivery notes, and shipping labels. The plugin supports most printers available on the market and the next step is to decide which printer is right for you.
Printers are one of the most important peripherals for an e-commerce business. There are different types of printers that are suitable for different businesses. Choosing a printer for a business depends on the size of the business. Depending on the long-term goals of the business, printers can be chosen considering which one will be worth the initial investment.
Things to Consider Before Buying Printers
Other important factors that should be weighed before buying a printer are:
- Compatibility – the compatibility of the printers with different operating systems and also with different e-commerce channels
- Cost-effectiveness – this depends on the business requirements.
- Maintenance – printers with more moving parts can cause high maintenance costs.
- Reliability – you should be able to print anytime without any trouble.
- Speed – this can be measured by the number of pages printed per second or the time take to print a single label.
- Print quality – different printers give different print quality, which also depends on the paper used with that printer.
- Ease of set up – there should not be any technical skill required to operate a printer.
- Size – if the size of the printer is small, it will take up less space and will be easily portable.
When it comes to the types of printers there are three types in particular – inkjet, laser, and thermal.
Let’s see these different types of printers and the most popular of each of the types in the market:
Most Suitable Printers for Printing Invoice, Packing Slips and other Shipping Documents in WooCommerce
Inkjet Printer
Image credit – ubuy.com
Inkjet printers are the most popular printers. As the name indicates, inkjet printers use ink cartridges to print. They are cheap and portable printers that produce high-quality prints. The initial costs of the inkjet printers are low within the range of under $100. Also, Inkjet printers usually produce the high-quality print.
One of the main downsides of inkjet printers is that they can sometimes produce blur print depending on the type of paper used. If the paper used is of low quality, it can result in blurry images since the paper absorbs more ink than it should before it dries. Smoother and brighter paper can produce a sharper and high-resolution print.
Although inkjet printers are cheap, their cartridges can get costly. These ink cartridges are specific to the printer model that you are using and produce fewer pages compared to other printers.
Also, their printing speed is slow compared to other types of printers. So they are suitable for small businesses that have lower label printing requirements.
Laser Printer
Image credit – Print4u.com
The difference between an inkjet printer and a laser printer is that while an inkjet printer uses ink, laser printers use toner. Laser printers can print significantly more pages with a single cartridge than an inkjet printer thus avoiding the need to change the cartridge often. Also, the toner does not need to dry as in the ink in inkjet printers and thus does not create blurry prints. Although the toner is expensive but is still cheaper than the ink cartridges for inkjet printers.
If the shipping volume increases, the laser printer can prove to be far more economically viable than the inkjet printers since they can produce a larger number of prints with a single cartridge and can print faster than inkjet printers with more pages per minute.
The cost of printing in color is one of the main disadvantages of the laser printer. For color prints the initial printer cost is high.
Thermal Printer
Image credit – Amazon.com
The most attractive part of thermal printers is – it needs no ink. This means you don’t have to keep an eye on the cartridge and worry about changing them occasionally. Thermal printers are the costliest among all but can be proven as the cheapest solution for printing in the long term – the money saved on the cartridges pays for itself. If the shipping volume is more, you will save with a thermal printer.
Also, they are the best choice for printing labels. The labels printed using thermal printers can last longer and are more durable.
Although they are great for printing packing slips and labels, they can not be used for printing general-purpose documents.
Some of the popular thermal label printers are:
1 – Zebra
Zebra printers are used by big online businesses. They can be used when printing the shipping labels is frequent. They are fast and reliable printers that get the job done.
The downside of zebra printers is their size and they are not very portable. They are not very easy to set up as well.
2 – DYMO
DYMO printers are the best option for occasional printing. They are cheaper than the Zebra printers but their rolls cost more than that of zebra printers’.
The downside of the DYMO printers is maintenance. In the long run, the DYMO printer can cause more maintenance costs. Also, the compatibility of the template can also be an issue.
3 – Brother
Brother thermal printers are the cheapest among all three printers. They are the best choice for fast printing. Brother printers are the best choice if you have a very low printing requirement.
To enable remote printing of all the documents generated using the PDF invoices, Packing slips, and Delivery notes plugin you can use its remote print add-on – PrintNode.
Conclusion
Even if you are running online stores there are times when you will need to physically print these documents for attaching with shipments, for keeping records, and for internal purposes, etc., thus making sure that you have the right printer to take care of these requirements is important as well. I hope this article will provide you with the right guidance in this regard.
