Print Bin Location Labels

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1. Purpose

Get a scannable barcode label onto every bin, using the barcodes Ship Side Kick already holds for your storage locations.

2. Scope

Producing physical labels for storage locations that already exist. Creating the locations themselves is SWI-001. Pallet licence plates are a different thing entirely and are covered in SWI-003.

3. Roles & Responsibilities

Role	Responsibility
Warehouse manager	Decides the barcode type and the label stock, and owns the naming scheme the labels carry.
Operations lead	Exports the locations, produces the labels, and test scans before a full run.
Warehouse operator	Applies one label per bin on the front face, and reports any label that will not scan.

4. When you need this

You are standing up a new zone or aisle and the racking has no labels on it yet.
Your bins exist in Ship Side Kick and are scannable in theory, but there is nothing physical to scan.
A label has been damaged, or a location has been renamed and the old label is still on the rack.
You are moving from paper picking to handheld picking.

5. Key concept: Print New LPNs is not the bin label button

What people assume	What actually happens
Print New LPNs prints bin labels.	It prints pallet licence plates, which are containers, not locations. There is no bin label print button in Ship Side Kick today.
No print button means bins cannot be barcoded.	Every location already has a barcode, and the handheld already reads it. Only the printing step is missing.
You need to invent a barcode for each bin.	The barcode defaults to the location name, so C8-06-11 is already both. Leave it alone unless you have a reason not to.
The locations export is just a backup.	The export is your label source. It carries the name and the barcode for every location, ready to drop into label software.
The barcode type has to match what Ship Side Kick uses.	Ship Side Kick reads whatever your scanner reads, so Code 128 and QR both work. Pick on how the label will be used, not on what the system expects.
Any barcode generator will do.	Free online generators cap how many barcodes you can make in one go. For a whole zone, use a merge tool that takes your CSV.

6. Procedure

6A. Export your locations

Go to Warehouses and open the warehouse.
Open the Actions menu.
Choose Export Locations.
A CSV downloads, named warehouse-locations followed by today's date. The two columns you need are name and barcode.

6B. Choose your barcode type

Ship Side Kick does not decode barcodes itself. Your handheld scanner reads the label and types the value in, so any format your scanner handles will work.

Consideration	Code 128	QR
Reading at distance down an aisle	Good. This is what linear barcodes are for.	Needs the scanner closer.
Surviving a scuffed or torn label	Less forgiving.	Better. It self corrects.
Scanning at any angle	Needs to be roughly level.	Any orientation.
Label shape	Wide and short.	Square, fits a small bin face.
Matches the pallet plates Ship Side Kick prints	Yes.	No.

Code 128 is the safe default. It matches the pallet licence plates, so one scanner setting covers both, and it reads well down a long aisle. Reach for QR where labels take a beating, where the bin face is too small for a wide barcode, or where pickers scan close up.

Check your hardware first. Older laser scanners are one dimensional: they read Code 128 but cannot read QR at all. Camera based scanners and 2D imagers read both. If you are not certain which you have, print one QR test label and scan it before committing to a whole zone.

6C. Print the labels

Pick the route that fits what you are doing. In all three, map the barcode column to the barcode itself and the name column to the readable text beneath it, so anyone can read the bin without a scanner.

Free and browser based, best for a full zone. Avery Design & Print imports your exported CSV and merges barcodes and text together. Choose either Code 128 or QR Code as the format, then drag the barcode column into the barcode field and the name column into the text beneath it. Runs on plain label sheets and an office printer, so no thermal printer is needed. Filter down to the zone you are labelling first, so you do not print the whole warehouse.
If you already run a thermal label printer. Zebra Designer and BarTender both take the CSV as a data source, and both handle Code 128 and QR. Same mapping, and both let you filter the rows before printing.
For a single replacement label. An online generator such as barcode.tec-it.com makes one at a time in Code 128 or QR. Paste the location's barcode value, pick the format, and download the image. The free tier stops at 10 barcodes without an account, so this is the right tool for one damaged label rather than a whole zone.

Apply one label per bin on the front face, at a height a picker can reach without moving stock.

7. Verification

On the handheld, open Move Inventory and scan a freshly applied bin label. It resolves to that location by name.
The name printed under the barcode matches the name shown on screen.
Spot check one label per aisle rather than every label, and test the first one off the printer before running the batch.

8. Constraints and caveats

Ship Side Kick cannot print bin location labels itself. This is a known gap and a request is with the team.
Older laser scanners read Code 128 but cannot read QR at all. Test before committing to a zone.
The export excludes archived locations, so anything retired will not appear and will not print.
Renaming a location after labelling leaves the old label on the rack. Reprint that one.
Barcodes are unique within a warehouse, so two bins cannot share a label.
Location labels and pallet licence plates are separate things. Do not use one where the other belongs.
The exported CSV is a snapshot, not a live feed. Export again after adding locations.

9. Worked example

A third party logistics team had just created a block of pick faces for a new zone and needed labels on the racking before picking could start.

Observation	Reading
Print New LPNs was the only print button they could find.	Correct, and it is the wrong one. That prints pallet plates. Bin labels are not printable in the app.
The exported CSV already had a barcode value for every new location.	Barcodes default to the location name, so nothing had to be invented.
Only the new zone needed labels, but the export held the whole warehouse.	Filter on the zone column in the label software before printing.
The first printed label scanned straight into Move Inventory.	The scanner types whatever it decodes, so an existing barcode value round trips with no extra setup.

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