When I find a great supplier, I let everyone know about them. I have been using Sticker Giant for all my label and sticker needs since I found them a few years ago. Let me tell you why I like them so much.
First, when you're dealing with a traditional label supplier, your labels have to conform to their proprietary die shapes. If you want to make a free-form or non-traditional shaped label, you would have to pay a very expensive die charge to get it made. Sticker Giant uses lasers to cut out your labels and stickers. And they do not care WHAT shape it is. There's a minimum 1/8" radius, they won't cut sharp corners. But other than that you are free to design whatever you want. Lucille's jars are an irregular hexagonal shape where the front and back panel are lager than the side panels. A regular shaped label just doesn't fit nicely on them. So I designed my label to wrap around and fit perfectly on the front and two side panels. I don't even want to think of what THAT die charge would have cost me.
Second, most label suppliers will charge you an artwork setup fee. If you make a change to your label in any way, you pay another artwork setup fee. Sticker Giant doesn't have setup fees. You submit your artwork and they will send you back a proof. Once you approve it they put it right into production. I've changed the shape of this label 3 times in order to get it perfect on the jar. That would have cost me new die charges and artwork setup fees each time if I wasn't using Sticker Giant.
Third, traditional label suppliers have really high minimum order quantities. This means ordering a bunch of labels you might get stuck with if you don't like how they turn out, or if you need to make a change. I have boxes of labels I bought for products that I only made one batch and then decided to switch to a smaller size container. That's money down the drain. Sticker Giant has a minumum order quantity of 125.
Fourth, I was experiencing turn-around times from when I placed the order to when I received my labels - anywhere between two to three weeks after the artwork proof had been approved. With Sticker Giant, as I mentioned before, your job goes into production after you approve the proof. Most stickers and labels ship out within 2-3 days after they are put into production. And ground shipping is FREE. If you need them quicker you can always pay for expedited shipping.
Their website makes it easy to order stickers and labels. You can even see the price breakdown at different order quantities before you order. As an example, I've taken a screen shot of the pricing for a 1.5" x 1.5" clear label. For $1.79 more you can get 33% more stickers if you order 1000 instead of 750. That is a heck of a deal.
Since I've been using Sticker Giant for a while now, I've run into a couple problems. And I always say what makes a supplier great is not how they handle regular everyday orders, but how they handle problems or exceptions. I received a batch of labels that didn't have any white printed on them.
My logo for Lucille's Gourmet Honey uses white in the Lucille's script, which really makes it stand out on the clear labels. Without the white it is less than stellar shall we say, as you can see in the picture above. I checked the proof to see if perhaps I had missed the white but it was there in the proof. I contacted customer service on a Thursday and let them know that the white hadn't printed. Kendall got back to me within 3 hours and let me know that a new run would be put into production Friday and they would ship it out as soon as it was finished. They shipped them next day air at their cost on Tuesday and I had them on Wednesday.
A couple of times recently they have run into production delays. I usually order my labels with ground shipping. The times Sticker Giant has had delays in production, they have shipped my orders out next day air at their expense to get them to me at the same time they would have arrived via ground without the delay. Now THAT is customer service!
My Sticker Story:
Well you can probably tell I'm a fan of Sticker Giant. When they sent out an email asking if there were any customers who wanted to be featured on their podcast, I sent them back an email to see if they might consider interviewing me. Andrew Matranga is Sticker Giant's Brand Journalist. He's the one who does their podcasts and customer highlights. He contacted me and after a couple of schedule adjustments we had scheduled an interview for their showcase "Stickers on the Mic". It was a really fun interview and I thank Andrew for the great questions about all my businesses that use Sticker Giant products. You can listen to the podcast here.
One Last Thing:
I have a tip for those of you who are organized and can wait to order your labels prior to when you need them - get on their mailing list! They send out discount codes on their mailing list and they rotate through their products. So you can get 15% off clear stickers and labels one month and another month may be the glossy labels. And they give an additional discount for each additional label you buy in the same order. For example, if you order 3 different labels the discount code will be applied to the first label. The second and third label will each receive a multiple product discount for being in the same order.