Put Your Brand First with Printful Inside and Outside Labels

Creating a strong, differentiated brand image is key to turning your website visitors into loyal customers. It’s also no secret that customers are willing to pay a premium price for branded products that offer quality and consistency. 

There are many tools you can use to put your brand first. But as an online clothing store owner, you should start with the basics—making your apparel stand out. That’s where Printful’s inside and outside labels come in.

If you haven’t heard of inside and outside labels or aren’t sure whether your brand needs them, don’t worry. This blog post will walk you through the basics of these custom branding options that’ll help you stand out from your competition.

Branding options glossary

To better understand the different types of garment labels, let’s take a look at what the most popular terms mean.

The inside label shows the info the apparel needs to have by law, including country of origin, size, fabric, and care instructions. This type of label is printed on the inside of the shirt under the collar on the back.

Outside labels are printed on the outside of the garment underneath its collar. Usually, it’s where brands show off their logo, but it can also be a text or other symbols. 

A manufacturer’s tag contains all the information that an inside label does, except these tags are usually sewn to the collar at the back of a garment.

A tear-away label is a sewn-in manufacturer’s tag that can be easily removed.

Learn more: Branded Dropshipping: a Guide for Ecommerce Businesses

Printful inside labels

At Printful, inside label customization is the Design Maker feature that makes it easier and quicker to simultaneously design and add inside labels for different color product variants. You can choose from several premade templates and customize the color of the text and the symbols.

Source: Printful

Here’s everything you need to know about Printful inside labels.

Price

At Printful, adding a custom inside label costs $2.50 per garment.

Size

Printful inside label specs for most garments are 3″ × 3,″ but can also be 2″ × 2″ or 2.5″ × 2.5,″ depending on the product. The space for your logo is 3″ × 1.13.″

Printing techniques

Printful offers to print inside labels with two fulfillment techniques: direct-to-garment (DTG) and direct-to-film (DTF printing). Both methods provide fantastic print quality. 

That said, DTG best suits natural fabrics like cotton, bamboo, linen, or such fabric blends. Alternatively, DTF printing can be applied to polyester, cotton, fleece, nylon, and such fabric blends. 

With both these techniques, there’s a wider selection of products that you can choose to print inside labels on.

The info it contains

A printed inside label needs to have all the mandatory product variant info: country of origin, size, fabric, and care instructions. When you choose to have an inside label on a garment, all this information will be filled in automatically by Printful.

Products you can print on

Not all products can have an inside label printed on them. You can filter garments by Branding options > Inside label in Printful’s Product Catalog to find products with this branding option. 

Source: Printful

Why print them?

Custom inside labels can enhance a product’s value, increase brand recognition, and indicate a commitment to quality.

It can also elevate a product’s overall presentation, making it feel more premium and aesthetically appealing to customers.

And a custom inside label with a personalized message or name adds a thoughtful touch for gifts or special occasions, making the item more meaningful and memorable.

Source: Printful

This is what a Printful inside label looks like. All you need to do is choose a desired label template or add your custom inside label when designing the garment. 

Printful outside labels

Creating an outside label works the same way as an inside label, and they have the same dimensions, but you can only add one type of label at a time to a single garment. 

As inside and outside labels are used for different purposes, choose which label fits your brand or needs best. 

Source: Printful

Here’s everything you need to know about the Printful outside label.

Price

At Printful, adding a custom outside label costs $2.50 per garment. However, an outside label for an all-over print product is included in the product price.

Size

Printful outside label specs are 3″ × 3″ for most garments.

Printing technique 

Outside labels are printed only with the DTG technique for all cotton and cotton blend products. 

For all-over print products, outside labels get printed together with the product’s design using the sublimation technique. 

Products you can print on

This type of label is available for most custom t-shirts (except racerbacks), hoodies, and sweatshirts. You can also add custom outside labels to some all-over-print items. 

To find products with the outside label branding option, filter them by Branding options > Outside label in Printful’s Product Catalog.

Source: Printful

Why print them?

Outside labels help strengthen your brand image in the eyes of your customers. Since there’s no mandatory info to add on the outside label, and it’s immediately visible to the world, you can let your creativity really shine! Think of it as a mini billboard.

Printed outside labels can be almost anything. Usually, it’s where designers choose to display the brand’s logo, a short text, or other graphics.

Source: Printful

This is what Printful outside labels look like. All you need to do is choose a desired design element, logo, or text.

Benefits of label printing

An extra little touch in the form of a label could be anything—a (very) short joke, a sketch of your cat, an important date . . . but in a lot of cases, it’s probably going to be simply your brand’s logo.

Here’s how custom labels can benefit your brand: 

• It makes your brand more professional. With printed labels, your garments are completely under your brand, and your customers see that you have thought about even the smallest details. There’s nothing more professional than that.

• It helps your brand stand out. By customizing labels on your products, you’re working on yet another angle of creating and defining your brand, which helps you stand out from the competition.

• It’s a constant reminder of your brand. There’s a strong chance that after a customer gets their hands on your product, they’ll forget all about the store they bought it from. Out of sight, out of mind. But a printed inside or outside label on a shirt makes your brand stay in their sight for as long as the shirt lasts.

• It’s yet another way to be creative. You can add a fun or informative message for the customer.

So if you’re running a successful online store, custom-printed labels are something you should definitely consider. 

How to add a printed label to your products with Printful

You can add an inside label to a product either when you’re adding it to your store or when you’re making a manual order through your account. For the sake of this blog, we’re going to use the process of adding products to your store, but both processes are very similar.

You need to open your Printful Dashboard and click on Stores on the left side menu. Pick the store you want to add the products to and click Add product. 

Source: Printful

Filter products by clicking on Branding options and choosing Inside Label or Outside Label. Select the garment that you’ve got your eye on. Pick all the product variants and add your designs. Above the mockup, you’ll see an option to add an inside or outside label. Click on the one you want to add, and you’ll see the space where you can customize the label. 

To choose a label template, click on Layers on the left.

Source: Printful

Just add your logo that meets the label size requirements. When the product gets printed, all the mandatory info about the garment will be added automatically. 

The process is the same for outside labels, except there won’t be any information that needs to be filled in.

And that’s how to add inside and outside labels on Printful—it’s as easy as that!

Check out all branding options at Printful. 

Little things make a big difference

As your online business is growing, you have to think of new ways to develop it further. While there are loads of things you can do, improving your product value with Printful’s custom-printed labels is something worth investing in.

Something small can make the biggest difference, and this is especially true for branded labels. It might seem like a small investment, but it does a whole lot for your brand’s visibility and image. 

Don’t hesitate and take your brand to the next level with printed labels!