Should You Handwrite Shipping Labels on Boxes?

At school we were taught grammar from notebooks. I also had the chance to use inkwells and fountain pens. Over time, it turned out that this skill, much like the art of Chinese calligraphy, had evolved into something more: a form of therapy and even a kind of craftsmanship.

However, when a consignee receives a gray slip of paper filled with illegible scribbles as an inventory list, the likelihood of conflicts and complaints goes up dramatically. A client entrusts their belongings to a shipping company, pays for the service, and in return receives a suspicious-looking document in an incomprehensible format. Naturally, this creates distrust.

In international shipping, the moving inventory list carries significant importance. It’s not just for the client — it’s a formal document for customs authorities in both origin and destination countries, as well as for security services. If the list raises any red flags, an inspection may be ordered to check that the contents of the packages match the declared items.

Finally, at the destination, the shipment is handed over by a local agent based on that same inventory. If anything is missing or damaged, insurance claims and customer complaints rely entirely on the documented inventory.

So why do a significant number of moving companies’ crews still write inventories by hand, ignoring the many digital solutions that dozens of companies have been trying to implement for years?

One of the main reasons is the complexity of those apps. Developers often try to cram multiple functions — such as inventory and estimation — into a single solution. The idea is to allow foremen to flag any undeclared items during the packing process. But in reality, this approach is doomed to fail. Packers and movers are hardworking individuals, often with no time for negotiation. It’s better to spare them the discussions with clients and help them focus on a seemingly simple but essential task: record a piece number and capture its contents. It sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly difficult to execute in the real world conditions.

This brings us to the next issue: labeling. The easiest technique is to handwrite the box number directly on a package with a marker. At first, this seems like the cheapest solution — all you need is a marker and a steady hand (hopefully not shaky from the last night’s events). But the core flaw in this method is the human factor. A tired worker surrounded by stressed out colleagues and nervous clients is prone to errors — skipping numbers, duplicating them, or mixing them up. Opinions vary on which type of mistake is worst, but the end result is the same: mixups and financial losses.

Another option is to use moving tags — color-coded labels invented in the early 20th century. Each tag combines a color and a serial number to create a unique identifier. However, a single roll only holds 200 or 500 tags. Sometimes that’s not enough for one shipment, and you have to switch rolls, which makes the cargo look like a festive garland. On the flip side, if you only use part of a roll, it feels wasteful to throw it away. This results in inventories with three or four different tag colors and sequences, which often triggers nervous laughter during unloading — especially when the list is sent by fax and the colors of the example tags disappear in the black-and-white copies.

The most advanced and reliable solution is printing job specific barcode labels on a Zebra printer, directly from the company’s CRM system. However, until recently, this option was too expensive and economically unjustifiable for most movers around the world.

The past two years have brought a new reality. A new solution — Voxme Bingo Portal — solves these challenges at a fraction of the previous costs. A yearly subscription costs is only $300, and each job is only $3. Users gain access to Zebra printer support for custom job specific labels, along with the trusted Digital Inventory app. This tool allows an unlimited number of users to create inventories from any device, sign them as PDFs, send them to clients, and upload them to the company portal, where they remain accessible at all times from anywhere.