Labeling a one-of-a-kind inventory: vintage, thrift, consignment and handmade

LabelCraft - barcode labels for Shopify that print at exactly the size you set.

The guarantees behind every label

Exact to ±0.1 mm

Every label prints at the size you set - measured, not approximate.

Never a silent failure

Overflow or a missing barcode always raises a visible warning before you print.

Whole-dot barcodes

Every bar lands on whole printer dots, so codes stay crisp and scan first time.

Your barcodes, untouched

We never overwrite or reassign a product's existing barcode.

In a vintage, thrift, consignment or handmade shop, one product is one variant is one physical piece. There is no second unit on a shelf. The label is how that piece gets found and rung up, so in practice it is the item's identity. This guide covers what that label must carry, and the one question that decides which tool should print it: how your pieces arrive.

What the label has to do

Carry the product's barcode. Shopify's own scanner help asks for the number to sit in the Barcode field, not the SKU field. No barcode, nothing to scan.
Be unique. Two pieces must never share a code, or the till rings up the wrong one.
Show what a customer needs. Usually the title, the size or condition, and the price.
Print once. One piece, one label. A quantity of 1 is the normal case here, not the exception.

The split is the rhythm, not the business model

Two shops with the same kind of stock can need different tools. What differs is how the pieces arrive.

A trickle: one piece, then another, then another. You photograph a piece, list it, label it, and move on. The printer's own software is the fastest tool here. It is installed, it knows your labels, and typing one title and one price beats opening any app. We explain why in the printer software or Shopify app guide.
A batch: an intake session. A bag of donations sorted on Monday, a consignor's drop-off, 50 pieces listed in an afternoon. Typing 50 titles and 50 prices a second time, after typing them into Shopify, is where an app pays for itself.

Many shops do both: a weekly session, plus the odd piece in between. Using both tools is fine too, as long as every label carries the barcode that is in Shopify.

A batch intake with LabelCraft

List the pieces in Shopify as usual. When a new product has no barcode, LabelCraft writes a unique code to it on its own, and its home page tells you if one could not get one.
Give the session's pieces something in common: a tag such as intake-0924, a collection, or a product type.
In LabelCraft, open Print a collection, choose A tag (or a collection, a vendor, a product type) and load it. Every variant comes in.
Set the quantities in one click: Set all to 1, or From inventory, which is 1 for a single piece.
Pick the template that matches your labels and print at 100% scale. Labels come out exact to +/-0.1 mm, and a barcode too narrow to scan is flagged before the print.

Older pieces with no barcode? Barcode check finds them and Generate missing barcodes fills them in one pass, without touching a code you already have.

A trickle, if you still want one app

When you create a product without a barcode, LabelCraft gives it one, and its home page shows New products ready to label. Its Print labels button opens the print page with the newest of those products, every variant at one label. It works, but for a single label it is still more clicks than the printer's software, and we will not pretend otherwise.

What it costs

LabelCraft is free up to 200 labels a month. A shop that lists 50 pieces a week prints a little over that most months. Pro is $9.99 a month for unlimited labels, with a 14-day free trial.

Install free - 200 labels per month →

Related guides

Not ready to install? Try the no-install demo and measure a real label

Still stuck after this guide? Get help from a human