Tips for Choosing an Electronic Waybill Printer Brand

Waybill Printer Classification

I. Traditional Waybill Printers (Dot Matrix Printers)

A waybill printer is a device specifically designed for printing express waybills. Traditional waybills, which are commonly used, are four-part hand-filled express delivery slips: the first copy for the delivery company, the second for the sender's company, the third for the sender, and the fourth for the recipient. Besides manual filling, these carbonless copy waybills can also be printed using a dot matrix printer. However, due to the complexity and slow printing speed, users typically only print the sender's information, while the recipient's information is still filled in manually for greater flexibility and convenience.

Advantages of Traditional Waybills

1) Using carbonless copy paper technology, the sender only needs to handwrite or print the first copy using a dot matrix printer; the content will be simultaneously copied onto the subsequent copies, saving writing time to some extent.

2) Courier staff can carry them, and only a pen is needed to complete the form filling when there is no printer available.

Disadvantages

1) Large paper size and multiple layers.

2) Suboptimal copy quality when handwritten or printed with a dot matrix printer.

3) If a mistake is made, all four copies are wasted.

4) Inconvenient to extract individual copies.

II. Electronic Waybill Printers (Thermal Printers, Printing Width 4 inches and above)

Electronic waybills are a new type of waybill compared to traditional waybills. They meet the needs of the rapidly developing express delivery industry and greatly simplify the manual waybill filling process.

Electronic waybills are mostly roll or stacked three-layer thermal self-adhesive labels. The last layer can be peeled off and directly affixed to the surface of the outer packaging, eliminating the need for an express delivery bag. The content of the electronic waybill (except for the express company logo) is generated by the express delivery software and printed directly by the waybill printer, maximizing the savings in labor costs for filling out waybills.

Advantages of Electronic Waybills

1. Higher Efficiency

1) The speed of electronic waybills is 4-6 times that of ordinary paper waybills; each waybill takes only 1-2 seconds to print on average. The high-efficiency printing greatly alleviates the pressure of large-volume printing for e-commerce customers and other clients. The average speed is 2500 sheets/hour, and the maximum speed can reach 3600 sheets/hour, easily handling promotional activities.

2) Faster order completion. After applying for waybill numbers from major express delivery companies, merchants can automatically batch import order information and shipping information in the waybill printing software to automatically generate label templates. After clicking print, batch generation of express waybills is performed.

2. Lower Cost; the cost of electronic waybills themselves is more than 5 times lower than that of traditional waybills.

Since electronic waybills are mostly roll or folded three-layer thermal self-adhesive label paper, the printer used to print electronic waybills is what we commonly call a "thermal printer".

However, this type of thermal printer is different from the thermal receipt printers often seen at supermarket/shopping mall checkout counters. Since the width of the electronic waybill is 100mm, which is larger than a supermarket receipt, and the express waybill may need to use tables and barcodes, the thermal printers that can be used to print electronic waybills are only thermal label printers with a printing width of 4 inches or more.

In addition, most thermal transfer barcode label printers on the market also have thermal printing functions. However, when users only need to use the thermal printing function for electronic waybill printing, it is recommended to use a thermal printing "electronic waybill printer".

Common electronic waybill printer brands on the market include: Postek, Zebra, and TSC.

III. Selection

When selecting an express waybill printer, you must first clarify your printing needs: using traditional waybills or electronic waybills? Because traditional waybills use dot matrix printers, while electronic waybills use thermal printers.

Comparing the two types of printers, thermal printing has the advantages of high speed, low noise, clear printing, and ease of use. However, thermal printers cannot directly print double-sided copies, and the printed documents cannot be permanently preserved. If the best thermal paper is used and stored in a well-lit environment, it can be preserved for ten years. Dot matrix printing can print multi-part carbonless paper, and if good ribbons are used, the printed documents can be preserved for a long time. However, dot matrix printers are slow, noisy, and the print quality is rough, requiring frequent ribbon changes. Therefore, customers can choose according to the type of waybill currently used or to be used.

In terms of the current trend of e-commerce development, the use of electronic waybills will be a trend. Its low cost, fast printing, accurate information collection, and batch printing features are very suitable for the needs of e-commerce platform users. When choosing a thermal printer to print waybills, in addition to choosing a branded printer with guaranteed after-sales service, two main factors should be considered:

1. Compatibility with waybill printing software, including official printing platforms of various express delivery companies and third-party waybill printing software;

2. Whether the key wear parts (printhead) are durable. Because thermal printing technology heats the printhead against the thermal label to form printed characters, the thermal printhead is a consumable part and is relatively expensive. Therefore, when purchasing, attention should be paid to the durability of the printhead.

3. Compatible with a variety of existing electronic waybill printing software, such as commonly used express waybill printing software: Kuaida, Feidou, Feixiang, Kef, Jingda, Zhuli, Xingda, etc. Users can design on the software they are already using and click print for convenience.

5. Some are also equipped with WiFi wireless printing function, greatly improving performance and eliminating the need for cumbersome wiring; they can be shared within the local area network.