Lightning Labels Blog

5 Tips for Using Eco-friendly Labels and Stickers to Promote Your Brand

Customers today are looking at more than price when they decide which brands to buy from. People who hold strong values and priorities such as protecting the environment are letting these priorities influence their shopping habits. If your brand makes products that suit an eco-friendly lifestyle, you can emphasize this aspect of your business to win over customers and boost your brand's appeal.

There's a catch, however: If your products are eco-friendly but the custom labels and packaging adorning them aren't, it can be hard to convince customers that your brand is serious about its green commitment.

Senior Manager Julie Waldrop amasses three-plus decades in printing

It’s not often these days that someone stays with the same company for 32 years. Julie Waldrop, Lightning Labels’ senior manager of business & client services, is the exception.

Working in different companies under one organization umbrella, starting with a Dallas printer, she has experienced the evolution of printing from the “old days of plates, changes and accompanying expenses” to today’s highly efficient and cost-effective digital printing platform. “Digital printing has seen a big transformation over the years, with smaller quantities and more versions available for a reasonable price,”

How will Cannabis Legalization 2.0 in Canada Affect Your Business?

Canada's Oct. 17 legalization of edible cannabis items represents the second step in the nationwide rollout of recreational marijuana. If your company is part of this rapidly developing ecosystem, you'll need to prepare a new set of custom marijuana labels to keep your products compliant and available to customers.

Unlocking a Powerful New Market

While predicting the exact direction of a new market sector such as legalized cannabis always comes with some variability, initial signs are positive for legalization 2.0. According to Deloitte, the market for edible cannabis items, marijuana-infused drinks, topicals and more will be worth billions annually.

Does Your Brand Need Prop 65 Warning Labels?

Proposition 65, the California law demanding the labeling of a long list of potentially harmful substances, received changes and revisions in 2016 that took effect in August 2018. If your company operates in the California market and sells goods that include any of the items on the state's list, it's important that those products have custom prop 65 labels.

There's never a bad time to verify that you're in compliance - or to take corrective action if it turns out your offerings aren't properly labeled.

What's New with Prop 65 Warning Labels?

The latest version of California's warning labeling system requires manufacturers to use new written and pictorial warnings on products that contain the chemicals listed by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

5 Things You Should Look for in a Custom Label Printing Company

When you update your product line or make changes to your company's branding, it's time for new custom labels. Choosing a reliable partner to create those labels will play a large part in determining how successful your new packaging strategy is.

You can look for the following traits to guide your search and settle on the ideal labeling provider for your needs.

1. Quick Turnaround Times

When you're hurrying to get a new product on shelves, make a needed label change for compliance purposes or rebrand your line, you don't want to wait extra days or weeks to complete the process. This is why it's important to work with a partner company such as Lightning Labels, which employs an all-digital printing process to print labels and ship them out in a matter of days, printing within 48-72 hours of final proof approval.

How to Make Your Candles Stand Out During the Holidays With Custom Candle Labels

Customers are extremely interested in candles during November and December. These months are the peak of the holiday shopping season, when candles make great presents or home decorations. Combine that holiday-season interest with a more general wish to make homes warmer and cozier as the nights get longer and the snow starts to fall, and you get a perfect time for candle marketing.

There's just one problem - every other candlemaking business will also be promoting its products at this time. How do you get your items to stand out? Your choice of custom candle labels may be the key to success.

Make Sure You Know What Amazon's Marketplace Barcode Label Requirements Are

Selling products through the Amazon marketplace is one of the most reliable ways to put your goods where customers can find them. Amazon's position of power in the online retail space makes it a valuable ally. If your company has struck up such a relationship with Amazon, there are a few requirements to follow to make sure your items reach buyers as intended. For instance, you should learn and meet the rules for Amazon-approved shipping barcode labels.

Approved Label Standards

When you ship your items through Amazon's fulfillment centers as part of the Fulfillment By Amazon program, you have to ensure the items are marked in accordance with Amazon label requirements.

5 Reasons You Should Work With a Professional Printer vs. Printing Your Own DIY Label

There's more than one way to get custom labels for your company's products. For instance, you can buy printers and bring the process in-house for DIY label printing.

While the "print my own labels" method may seem like a way to achieve greater control over a packaging strategy, you may be better served by turning to an expert third-party partner. The following are five reasons to think twice before taking the reins of your labeling strategy, which double as great motivation to call Lightning Labels:

1. Lack of Big Hardware Expenditures

When you buy a label printer, that takes a significant investment

Benefits of Paper Stock Materials for Your Wine Bottles Labels

One of the key ideas behind marketing your vineyard's offerings involves creating a strong image in customers' minds. Winning over people who have never tried one of your wines before is easier when those shoppers can infer facts from the wine bottle label. A well-designed wine bottle label expresses your vineyard's unique identity and encourages purchases, just as a generic or confusing packaging strategy may turn customers away.

Creating compelling wine bottle labels isn't just about picking the right imagery and text. You should also focus on selecting a perfect material for the custom wine bottle labels, one that completes the brand's image and makes a strong, tactile impression on consumers who examine the bottles in stores.

Pablo’s Coffee cultivates longtime employees, customers

Company raises coffee-making to fine art

There are more flavors in coffee than wine. That’s the assessment of Craig Conner, founder of Pablo’s Coffee with three metro Denver retail locations and a wholesale facility.

“There’s a lot of work between harvesting green coffee beans and turning them into coffee,” notes Craig. “We look at a variety of factors, including acidity, flavor, body, sweetness and aroma and assign an overall score between zero and 100. After we’ve quantified empirically, we talk about it.”

To figure out which coffees make the final cut, Craig and his colleagues get heavily involved in “coffee cupping,” defined by Wikipedia as: “…the practice of observing the tastes and aromas of brewed coffee.