Packaging guide
Packaging for Shopify Stores
How to set up a packing bench that keeps up with orders, from label printing to the three consumables you will reorder forever.
Updated Sep 2, 2026
The packaging question for a Shopify store is rarely “which box”. It is “how do I pack thirty orders in an hour without it becoming the worst part of my week”. That is a bench-design problem as much as a materials problem.
Print labels, do not write them
The single biggest speed improvement is a desktop direct thermal label printer. Shopify Shipping, and every carrier app, outputs a 4 × 6 inch label. Direct thermal needs no ink and no ribbon — the only consumable is the label. At thirty orders a day, handwriting or taping A4 printouts costs you an hour a week you will never get back.
Buy labels in the 500-per-roll format and keep a spare roll on the bench. Check your printer’s core size before ordering — 25 mm suits most compact desktop units.
Standardise on as few pack formats as you can
Every additional box size adds bench confusion, stock, and a decision your picker has to make. Most stores can run on:
Five SKUs total. Fewer decisions per order, better quantity pricing on each line.
The bench itself
A workable layout, left to right: incoming picked items → packing materials within arm’s reach → label printer → outgoing shelf. Tape dispenser on the dominant-hand side. Void fill on a roll above the bench rather than in a box on the floor. None of this is exotic, and all of it compounds over a thousand orders.
Consumables you will reorder forever
Three lines make up most of a small store’s ongoing packaging spend: mailers or boxes, tape, and labels. Because they reorder predictably, they are where quantity pricing pays off fastest — buying tape six rolls at a time costs materially more per roll than buying seventy-two.
Work out your monthly burn rate, then buy a quarter’s supply at a time. That usually moves you up a pricing tier without tying up much cash or much shelf space.
Before you print anything
Do not order custom printed packaging until you know which size you actually reorder. Printed runs have long lead times and high minimums, and the most common expensive mistake a growing store makes is committing to five thousand printed boxes in a size it stops using two months later.
Tell us your monthly order volume and what you sell, and we will put together a starting list with quantity pricing.
Products in this guide
Still not sure?
Tell us what you ship and roughly how much of it, and we will recommend a specification and price it.