Wholesale runs on labels. A shop scans a barcode at the till, a stockroom finds a case by reading the side of a carton, a carrier routes a pallet by reading a sticker, and your accounts team matches a payment by reading an invoice number printed on a packing slip. None of that exists in a DTC order, where the customer opens the parcel and the story ends.
There are four labels to get right, and only one of them — the courier label — is something you already print today.
The unit label and the barcode on it
The unit label is what the customer sees on the shelf and what the till scans. Two jobs, and the second is the one that blocks orders.
Almost every shop with a point-of-sale system needs a scannable barcode on the individual product. Without one, a small boutique will hand-key your product into their system and grumble; a larger store will simply decline the order. The number behind the barcode is a GTIN, usually printed as a UPC in North America or an EAN elsewhere, and you get it by registering a company prefix with the numbering authority and assigning one number per sellable variant.
One number per variant is the part brands get wrong. Lavender in a large jar and lavender in a small jar are two products and need two numbers. The same jar sold through two channels is one product and needs one number. Reusing a number across variants breaks a shop's stock file in a way that is genuinely annoying to unpick, and they will remember whose fault it was.
Print it somewhere flat, somewhere reachable, and large enough to scan on the first pass. A barcode wrapped around the curve of a jar or hidden under the base makes a queue at the till, and the person in that queue is your stockist's customer.
The compliance text nobody checks until a buyer does
Alongside the barcode, the unit label carries whatever the product category legally requires, and a wholesale buyer is far more likely to check than a DTC customer.
The usual list, depending on what you make: ingredients or materials, net weight or volume, country of origin, the name and address of the responsible business, batch or lot code, and any category-specific warnings. Candles have burn instructions and a fire warning. Cosmetics have ingredient naming conventions. Food has allergen declarations and dates. Anything for children has its own rules entirely.
Two practical habits. Put a batch or lot code on every unit, even if nothing requires it, because the day you need to trace which shops received a bad run you will be grateful. And keep a photograph of the current label for every SKU in a folder with the date, because buyers ask for label images during onboarding and re-photographing a range is an afternoon you will not enjoy.
The case label, which is where fulfilment lives or dies
Once units go into a case, the case has to be identifiable without being opened. This is the label that saves you the most time and the one most first-time brands skip.
What belongs on it, on at least two adjacent faces:
- Brand and product name, readable across a stockroom
- SKU code and variant
- Units per case
- Purchase order or order number
- Carton number in the form one of three
Add a case barcode when accounts start scanning at goods-in. That barcode is not the same as the unit barcode: it identifies the case as a tradeable unit, which is why the numbering scheme allocates a different indicator digit to it. For a small brand shipping to independents, the human-readable version is usually enough, and you can add the scannable one when somebody asks.
The carton-number line matters more than it looks. When a shop signs for two cases and you sent three, "two of three" on the labels turns a dispute into a carrier claim. How the case itself is built sits in case pack packaging.
The shipping label and what goes next to it
The courier label is the one you already know, but wholesale adds neighbours to it.
A packing slip goes inside the carton or in a document wallet on the outside, listing what is in that shipment, against which order, with your order number and the buyer's purchase order number both visible. Do not put the invoice in the box. Invoices go to the person who pays, by email, and a paper invoice inside a carton reaches a stockroom and stops there.
If you are shipping on a pallet rather than as parcels, the pallet takes its own label with the destination, the number of cartons and the weight, and larger accounts will want a specific format on a specific corner. That is routing-guide territory, and it is covered as part of wholesale shipping.
| Label | Goes on | Read by |
|---|---|---|
| Unit label | The product | The customer and the till |
| Case label | Inner or master carton | Stockroom and goods-in |
| Shipping label | Outer carton or pallet | The carrier |
| Packing slip | Inside or in a wallet | Whoever unpacks it |
Printing it without a warehouse
You do not need warehouse equipment to do this properly. You need a thermal label printer, one roll size for unit labels and one for case labels, and a template per SKU.
Thermal matters because inkjet labels smudge and fade, and a smudged barcode is an unscannable barcode. Direct thermal is fine for shipping and case labels that live for weeks. Thermal transfer, which uses a ribbon, is the better choice for unit labels that sit on a shelf in sunlight for a season.
Keep the templates in one place, named by SKU, and version them with a date. When a formulation changes and the ingredient list changes with it, you want to know which label was on which batch. This is dull and it is exactly the kind of dullness that separates a brand a buyer will reorder from one they will not — the same theme runs through wholesale fulfillment.
What larger retailers add on top
Independent shops want the basics above. A department store or a chain grocer adds requirements, and they arrive as a document rather than a conversation.
Expect specified label placement measured from the carton edge, a required carton label format carrying their own item numbers alongside yours, sometimes a serialised shipping label applied per carton, and dated delivery windows printed on the paperwork. None of this is negotiable and all of it is enforced by deductions from your invoice when you get it wrong.
The right response is not to redesign everything now. It is to keep your data clean — one number per variant, dimensions and weights recorded, batch codes running — so that when a larger account arrives you are filling in a form rather than rebuilding a range. What that first big-account conversation looks like is in selling to department stores as a small brand.
If you have not yet worked out which kind of account you are labelling for, start there rather than with the label stock. Paste your product link into WholesalePilot and look at the preview of shops and distributors that stock similar products; a range headed for independents and a range headed for chains need different amounts of this work.
Questions brands ask about wholesale labels
Can I buy a single barcode number instead of registering a prefix? You can, and some shops will accept it. Larger accounts increasingly check who the number is registered to, and a number that does not resolve to your company can hold up onboarding.
Does every colour and size need its own barcode? Yes, if a customer can buy them separately. Anything a till needs to tell apart needs its own number.
Do I need a barcode to sell to a small boutique? Often not, but add one anyway. It costs almost nothing per unit and it removes a reason to say no.
Where should the barcode go on a jar? On the base if the base is flat and the jar is short, otherwise on a flat panel on the back. Test it by scanning with a phone at arm's length before you order a thousand.
What about the outer packaging design itself? That is a separate decision from labelling, and it is covered in wholesale packaging.