If you are a business owner with employees and a parking lot (or lots), you may be thinking about parking permits. “They’re such a hassle, and so expensive,” you may be telling yourself. And, “Who really needs parking permits anyway?” may be something else you’re thinking. Well, this article is dedicated to discussing the benefits of parking permits. After reading, I’m thinking you may just change your tune.

1. Parking permits help curb serious safety issues.
Parking permits are often the first step to employee safety. Parking permits help you to more clearly know which employees are actually on your company’s premises and which ones are not. By keeping track of who may have come in early or is staying late – you’ll have a good sense of employee safety. Employees deserve to be kept safe if they are working alone, or nearly alone, in your office / building. Through the use of parking permits, your security staff can easily be aware of who is on the promises at all times.

2. Work time saved.
Having parking permits can help if there is trouble with an employee’s car during the day. “How’s that,” you may ask. Well, here’s one example… Your security staff does a routine inspection of the office parking lot. They find a car with a flat tire. Immediately they check the parking sticker and are instantly able to tell whom the car belongs to. They call the employee and help him / her call an auto mechanic who comes to fix the tire while still at work. The employee doesn’t miss much work taking care of the flat tire. This also helps to keep your employees happy, as they aren’t coming out to the parking lot at the end of the day to a flat tire!

3. Ensure unwanted persons are kept out of your office / place of business.
In today’s fast-paced world of new hires, turnover and layoffs, parking permits are one of the best ways to keep employees who belong on your premises there and those who don’t – out! A disgruntled employee should not be given access to your company except under your knowledge. Without parking permits, you’ll have far less control of these type situation.s Those without recent and updated parking passes will have to sign in and provide identification. If a former employee has to come back to your company premises for some reason, your company will have a good watch over the situation. Without parking permits, this could be easily turn into a sticky situation.

4. Employees like parking permits.
Some employees may state that they don’t like getting parking permits renewed or that making sure the permits are always in their car is a “hassle.” But, most employees understand and like the safety that comes with having parking permits. And, more, it confirms that they are part of the team! Giving employees parking permits is one simple way to support them. It also reminds employees where they should / should not park and affords you the ability to require certain departments to park in a specific area / areas, which can help to build team spirt as well as add safety in that you can designate parking areas for varying shifts to ensure employees are walking to and from their vehicles in groups. A parking permit is considered an employee benefit by many.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me” – you might be saying right about now. “How do I go about ordering my new company parking permits?” Ah, that’s the easy part. We explain everything you’ll need to know on this Parking Permits page of our site. You’ll need to pick a shape and then start your design. This can include your company logo, motto, and much more. Many parking permits include information such as the driver’s license number and license plate number of each individual employee.

Keep your employees safe and give them parking permits today!

Mark Trumper – CEO
MaverickLabel.Com

The labels are being designed to assist consumers when choosing new appliances and other items. The labels will clearly mark energy consumption guidelines and help consumers choose more energy efficient products and reduce their carbon emissions when using dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators, and more.

Energy labels have been used in the UK on white goods for some time now, rating products from A (best) to G (worst). However, the new label system will add ratings of A+ and A++ to give credit to appliances that are extra energy efficient.

“Consumers want to make the right decisions when buying new goods that use less energy and bring down household bills,” said Environment secretary Caroline Spelman.

“These new energy saving ratings will help people make the right choice when out shopping for TVs and white goods by choosing those which are rated the darkest green on the labels,” Spelman added.

Read the full story here… Energy Saving Trust – UK

These are common questions, and ones that our customer care team members address frequently.  So, I thought I would write a post today to describe how MaverickLabel.Com handles debit and credit card purchases.

MaverickLabel.Com Shipping Policies
First, please let me say that MaverickLabel.Com tries very hard to ONLY run the charge on both debit and credit cards AFTER purchased items have gone into the shipping process.  Unfortunately, this is not always under our control.  Please read on for further explanation.

Debit / Credit Card Regulations
Next, let me explain the rules as to when an item can and does ship, when using debit or credit cards to make purchases from MaverickLabel.com and other online retailers in general…  There is a common misconception that there is a United States “law” that prohibits merchants from charging a debit/credit card until the purchased item actually ships.  While this is not entirely accurate, it is certainly bad business practice to run the debit/credit card before the purchase ships.  Most ethical businesses, MaverickLabel.Com included, only charge when the purchased items actually ship from their warehouses.  While there is no law that states this to be a requirement, there are in fact VISA and MasterCard regulations regarding the timing relationship between charging the card, and fulfilling (shipping) the purchase.

Contrary to popular belief, the Fair Credit Billing Act (LINK - http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre16.shtm) does NOT flatly prohibit charging your debit/credit card before shipping your purchase.  Instead, it makes it illegal to “not ship” within an advertised time period.  So, if a website states that a particular item takes “5-7 days to ship,” then the merchant may legally charge your card right away and not have any legal issues provided they do in fact ship your purchase within that 5-7 day window.  (Under this same legislation, a website that does not state a turnaround time has up to 30 days to actually ship your merchandise after charging your card.)  A slight delay between the charge and the shipping date is a common practice for many online retailers and well within each company’s legal rights.  In fact, this helps to protect merchants from debit/credit card fraud as it can provide a buffer period between the time the card is charged and the time the product(s) leave the merchant’s facility.  This ultimately helps consumers, as this practice allows online retailers to protect themselves from fraud and keep their pricing at a minimum.

So, When Exactly Is My Debit / Credit Card Charged?
Most online retailers accepting debit and/or credit cards follow the same primary processes.  When an order is placed online and you provide your debit or credit card information (once you hit the Submit button that is), an “Authorization Request” is sent to the bank that issued your debit or credit card. Think of this as a “reservation” against the available credit limit on your card. This request checks to ensure that the debit/credit card information you provided is accurate, that the card is valid, and that there is enough available credit (or funds in the case of a debit card) to complete the order.  This is where things start to get a little tricky.

From this point forward, most banks and/or credit companies (VISA and MasterCard, etc.) have different rules as to how your funds are held and/or handled.  Many financial institutions, and the credit card companies themselves, have different time periods that they “allow” these authorizations to remain valid.  Some creditors, for instance, allow these authorizations to remain in “open status” for up to seven days, while others allow them to remain in open status for up to 30 days.  These terms can be different for each and every bank or financial institution.  And, to add to the confusion, some creditors allow these funds to remain “available” on your credit balance or bank account, while others immediately deduct the total of the Authorization Request from your available balance.  This is completely under the control of your bank or financial institution and, unfortunately, there is nothing that any online retailer can do to change these circumstances.

So, to summarize, every time you place an order with MaverickLabel.Com (or any online retailer), your credit card account is immediately sent this Authorization Request.  And, each financial institution has different rules on how they process these requests, how long these requests can remain open, and whether or not the funds remain “available” in your account.  To make matters worse, these same financial institutions often have completely different policies regarding “debit card” versus “credit card” accounts, and we, as online merchants, have no control over these financial institution policies.  Additionally, online retailers have no simple way to determine whether the card provided in the transaction is a debit card or a credit card – so we must treat all orders in the same manner.

The final part of the debit/credit card process is called “Capture.”   Once we have an item ready to ship, we run the Capture Request.  At this point, your debit or credit card is actually “charged” for the order and the funds are deducted from your available balance (if a debit card was used) or available credit amount (for credit cards). In effect this completes the transaction that was originally “reserved” when the “Authorization Request” was sent. As previously stated, MaverickLabel.Com tries very hard to charge (“capture”) your debit or credit card only when your product actually ships. There are some merchants that skip the Authorization process and just “Capture” the funds immediately when you click on the “Submit” button.

With the above in mind, there are many instances where it is “necessary” to charge (“capture”) a card before the purchase actually leaves the warehouse or manufacturing plant.  One example of this would be as follows…  Let’s say a company has production and shipping employees that work on weekends, but not office and financial employees.  In this instance, if an item is designated to ship on a Saturday, the office worker who does not work on weekends may run the debit/credit card on the Friday before the purchased item is intended to ship.  This is just a simple example of many situations where this sort of charge practice not only happens, but ultimately benefits the consumer, as the customer receives the product before they would if the company waited to ship until the card could be charged.

Differences Between “Debit” and “Credit” Charge Cards
The main differences between debit and credit charge cards involve how each card actually works, and the source of the funds.   “Credit” cards can only be used as a credit card; the issuing bank gives you a line of credit, up to your credit limit.  You may continue to charge up to your line of credit, and then you are responsible for making the payments.

Debit cards on the other hand, do not carry a “line of credit.”  Upon capture, funds are immediately withdrawn from your bank account. So purchases made with a debit card cannot exceed the amount of money that the purchaser has in their bank account.

But here is where it can get tricky. Remember that “Authorization” step when the purchaser first places the order, which reserves the funds until the “Capture” actually commits the funds? With a credit card, the authorization amount is deducted from the available credit limit until the capture commits them, or until the authorization is canceled either by the merchant, or by the time limit simply running out. But you can continue to use your credit card as long as you do not exceed your credit limit, and it does not matter how much cash you have in your bank account. With a debit card however, the authorization step freezes the total funds for the transaction in your bank account. So while your bank account balance may show the total in the account, the available balance will be reduced by the amount of the authorization. This can cause checks to bounce, even though you thought you had enough funds to cover them, and even though the online merchant does not capture the funds until they ship your product.

The other major difference between debit and credit cards is the risk involved for the card owner. Because debit cards are attached directly to a person’s bank account, they carry a higher.  Debit cards can (and are) used quite frequently without the requirement of a Personal Identification Number (PIN).  This makes it quite easy to fraudulently use another person’s debit card to drain all the money in the associated bank account.  Credit cards present risk in the form of having unauthorized persons using the card, but not the same risk of having money drained directly from a personal/business bank account.

I hope this helps to better explain the differences between using debit and credit cards with MaverickLabel.Com, when purchased items can/are charged, and the difference between debit and credit cards in general.  If you still have questions, please email or call our customer service team for a prompt response…

CustomerCare@MaverickLabel.Com
(800) 537-8816 (Toll Free from USA & Canada)
(425) 771-6500 (From Elsewhere)

Sincerely,

Mark Trumper – CEO
MaverickLabel.Com

Contributing Author:
Rick Kent – President / Chief Science Officer
MaverickLabel.Com

MaverickLabel.Com was founded to meet the growing need for a label source utilizing the latest technologies blended with old fashioned quality and customer service. They specialize in custom label printing for roll labels, custom window decals and hard to find items such as hard hat stickers, in their growing list of label products.

Dot Com Label Mavericks? OK, so the real name of the company is MaverickLabel.Com. But the former is more descriptive, because this is an internet company … supplying labels … in a different and inventive way. Maverick sees itself first and foremost as a web technology company, providing an interface for the customer into the world of ordering labels – a label “portal” – which can simplify the process of ordering almost any kind of label or tag, regardless of the manufacturing method.

Click Here to Read the Full Article…

“Our driving focus is to make label ordering easy for the customer,” says CEO Mark Trumper. “We know that there are many different places people can order labels, but finding the right one is difficult enough. Then, having to navigate the vast array of options any one manufacturer may present makes it even more daunting. Only after dealing with a great deal of complexity might the customer realize that there is a mismatch between their needs and the vendor’s offerings. Our goal is to fix that problem. We offer a complete set of labeling solutions – virtually any kind of label or tag, produced on all kinds of equipment – in any quantity the customer might want. And we do it with an integrated, consistent interface to a set of intelligent online quoters, for an intuitive shopping experience.”

Mark Trumper – CEO
MaverickLabel.Com

So, where exactly did stickers come from and why were they invented?  To answer this question, let’s first look at the definition of the word “sticker.”  Dictionary.com defines a sticker as…  “An adhesive label.”  (Wow, that’s pretty vague, huh?)

So now, let’s look at rumored inventors of the sticker.  While there is no definitive source acknowledged as inventing the sticker, there are several suggested first uses of stickers throughout history…

• It has been suggested that the Ancient Egyptians first created “stickers” to advertise their daily market rates.  Archeologists have found items, at Egyptian excavation sites, that appear to be pricing and/or product descriptions plastered to walls of ancient cities.  These artifacts are believed to have been some sort of early paper, which was written on and then somehow glued/plastered to the walls of various market places throughout Egypt.
• It has also been suggested that Sir Rowland Hill, in 1839, invented the modern sticker when he created and introduced an adhesive paper that became the first Postage Stamps.
• Then there are those who believe that the sticker was invented in the 1880′s by European advertising gurus, who came up with the idea to help consumers identify (and ultimately purchase) products by use of colorful paper “labels.”  These colorful paper labels were stuck to various types of fruit and fruit packaging with a simple gum paste.  Apparently, there was massive competition in European orchards at this time in history.  These inventive stickers were used primarily on the sides of the fruit crates to help make their containers “stand out” from their competitors.
• And even others argue that R. Stanton Avery, the founder of popular “Avery Labels,” is the actual inventor of the sticker, when he invented the first self-adhesive label in 1935.

Many early stickers were the pre-apply type, meaning you had to somehow “wet” (lick, apply water, etc.) the back / adhesive side of the sticker before applying.  While there are still pre-apply stickers in use today, most modern stickers do not require this task to use the sticker.  So, I guess the inventor of the sticker could be determined by your definition of a sticker itself.

Whichever you believe, stickers have evolved tremendously over the years and are now used in most all aspects of modern day life.  There are literally hundreds of different types of stickers, ranging greatly in differences by material (paper, vinyl, plastics, etc.), application (indoor, outdoor, temperature, etc.), inks (UV, process / spot colors, etc.), adhesives (permanent, removable, ultra-removable, etc.) and even coatings (polymer, clear, varnish, etc.)

MaverickLabel.Com offers custom label printing solutions for any need.  Whether it be simple blank labels / stickers or custom items like name plates, asset tags, control panels or more custom items like process color custom product labels – we are your complete label resource.

Mark Trumper – CEO
MaverickLabel.Com

Researchers analyzing data from a 2005-06 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, found that nearly 62% of respondents said they read the nutrition facts labels before making a food purchase. Further, nearly 52% examine the list of ingredients, 47% pay attention to the serving size and nearly 44% review health claims at least some of the time when deciding which food product to purchase.

There were significant health differences between food label readers and non-readers. Researchers of the study stated that people who took the time to read the food labels had dramatic increases in their intake of total calories, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, and dietary fibers / sugars.

“If the food label is to have a greater public health impact, rates of use will likely need to be increased among U.S. adults,” said study author Nicholas J. Ollberding, a professor in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, at Columbia University.

“Low rates of label use also suggest that food labels may need to be modified,” Ollberding added. Suggested changes to the current label could include bolding calorie information, reporting the total nutrient intake for foods likely to be consumed in a single sitting, and using more intuitive labeling techniques such as the use of red, yellow and green inks on the label itself.

So, what does all this mean to those of us in the label industry or our customers – actual purchasers of food product labels? Nothing specific just yet. There are no mandated changes for requirements on food / nutrition labels at this specific time. But, they may be coming at some point down the road. We will do our best to keep you posted as to changes in FDA requirements. In the mean time, however, please feel free to visit the food labels page of our site for a listing of products we offer and more information.

And, if you’d like even more info on this subject, please visit the FDA’s website…
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm094536.htm

Have a question or comment about food or nutrition facts labels? Please leave your comment below and we will get back to you with a personal response.

Thank you,

Mark Trumper
CEO – MaverickLabel.Com

So, what is a brand, you might ask?  And, how do you know if you have one?  Well, every company has a brand.  But, truth be told, you don’t always own your own brand.  Your brand is really the perception of your business and is controlled by your customers, products, vendors, customer service agents, and yes – even your company labels.

Your Image Is Your Brand

Scary thought, I know.  But, everything about your company is indeed your “brand.”  Many companies carefully choose their employees, provide customer service training, spend lots of money on their stationery and business cards, and have a large marketing budget.  But, many of these same companies often overlook an item that is seen by customers who order a product, have something delivered, or receive packages from these companies – the label!

That’s where MaverickLabel.Com can help.  We specialize in providing any type of label imaginable.  In business since 1994, MaverickLabel.Com provides a secure online environment for both designing and ordering labels of all types.  We make it easy for you to find the exact label you’re looking for with our Uber Quoter and our customer service team is available to assist you place your label order.

So, next time you’re thinking about your brand identity, consider enhancing your brand’s image with quality, professional labels from MaverickLabel.Com.

Mark Trumper
CEO
MaverickLabel.Com

After a lengthy research and testing period, we have today officially added a new, Earth friendly label material – NatureFlex™ biodegradable label films – to our extensive label stock selection.

Perfectly suited for products like food and beverage labeling, as well as high-impact nutraceutical and pharmacy product packaging, NatureFlex™ label films are made of regenerated cellulose, which starts as wood pulp.  NatureFlex™ has been proven to fully biodegrade in as little as 16 weeks – making this a truly environmentally conscious label material.

MaverickLabel.Com® proudly offers the NatureFlex™ label film in 1.8 mil White and Clear choices on many of our most popular products, including our process color labels.

To ensure MaverickLabel.Com® customers would be completely satisfied with this new label stock material, we spent countless hours over several months performing both indoor and outdoor quality tests.  And, the results of these tests were fantastic.  Labels printed on NatureFlex™ stock both looked great and had tremendous durability.

We are constantly striving to do our part to be more Earth sensitive and this product is a perfect fit to our existing label stock material choices.

Find more details about NatureFlex™ label stock at our Process Color Labels product page…
http://www.mavericklabel.com/process_color.html

Mark Trumper, CEO
MaverickLabel.Com®
800.537.8816

Even in these barren economic times, the cost of purchasing a new ink jet printer is amazingly low. Printer manufacturers often sell these printers below cost, which sounds like an awfully bad deal for printer manufacturers. Sounds like, but isn’t. Believe it or not, this type of sales logic dates back over a hundred years to a man named King.

King C. Gillette, whose last name now adorns items in men’s grooming kits around the world, stumbled upon the idea of the disposable razor when he was working as a traveling salesman in the late 1890s. His plan was to craft a razor handle of good quality, and to sell the handle at a small loss. Doing so would encourage users to keep buying replacement blades, which could be sold at a profit, in order to create customers who returned on a regular basis.

This type of sales strategy, sell a loss leader to promote regular, more profitable sales became known as the Razor and Blades business model, and has been employed numerous times since its inception. When Standard Oil wanted to move into China, they gave away 8 million kerosene lamps in order to create a market for the lamps’ oil. Electronics manufacturer Apple has stated that it doesn’t make much money from iPod sales, instead profits are derived from its iTunes Store. And, of course, there are printer companies, whose use of this tactic is notorious.

A brand new ink jet printer can be purchased from most big box stores for less than $50, setting an incredibly low bar for an average quality consumer color printer. However, replacing the cartridges for that printer will cost the consumer almost as much as the printer itself, and sometimes more.

And therein lies the rub. At consumer pricing, the ink for printers can cost up to $8000 per gallon, making it one of the most costly liquids known to man. This price scales down to make printing relatively affordable for small operations like home users and students. However, as business owners can quickly find out, when printing things like cheap color labels and business cards on anywhere near a regular basis, the cost of ink can really add up. This type of profit plan makes a do-it-yourself solution only feasible when printing is done infrequently at best.

The problem with the Razor and the Blades strategy is that scaling does not pass economic benefits to the consumer. During good economic times, the squeeze of the Razor and Blade business plans is tough, but during a recession, it can be brutal. The problem becomes not how to make the most in a loss leader economy, but rather how to escape it.

The obvious solution is to try and capitalize on a wholesale economy, where sellers lower their profit margins in exchange for a guarantee of more sales. With printer ink, there is obviously a great bit of space for the prices to fall. But to make the most of those savings, a printer has to buy in very large quantities, which puts a small business an economic position that is worse than the current one.

The solution is to allow someone else to shoulder the bulk of the wholesale burden by relying on a third party for printing. The thought of making use of an outside printer might seem foreign, but it provides a great deal of advantages. Offloading your printing means that you’re only going to be paying for the ink you use, and thus you’ll be saving some money.

Moving some of your printing to a third party means that you’ll need to consider what you’ll print, as you can’t simply offload everything. Here is where a little knowledge of knowing your printing habits comes in handy. By identifying what you print over and over again on regular basis, things like business cards, labels, and forms, allows you to outsource those printing jobs. True, you’ll still need to do some printing on your own, but with careful planning and working with a the printer, you can hopefully drop the total amount of printing you do on your own to a manageable level and land in a more comfortable section of the Razor and Blade business model.

MaverickLabel.com can help you reduce your label printing costs by printing your shipping labels. Still need inkjet labels?

The line between online content and the offline world is quickly eroding. For years it has been common place to include a web address on marketing materials, package wrappers, and signage, but these addresses required the viewer to maintain an interest in a company or website from the point of discovery to they reach a computer, or to peck out an address on a cell phone. This gap in access between discovery and information, allows for any number of distractions to swoop in and siphon off a customer who might be fence sitting on a product. A unique combination of several technologies is doing what it can to erase this gap. That practice, already widespread in Japan, is set to make the jump to the United States in the near future.

The concept is called “mobile tagging” and it typically involves a two-dimensional barcode, a camera phone, and a webpage created specifically for mobile phone browsers.

The two-dimensional barcode is not necessarily a new invention, having been created in both the United States and Japan almost simultaneously in the mid-1990s. The result is a barcode that makes use of blots, or boxes, or dots rather than simple vertical lines. These barcodes are able to encode a great deal of data – an upper limit of 4000 or so characters compared to the twenty or so of a traditional barcode. The ability to pack that much data into such a tiny spot has turned the barcode from a simple method of tracking into a means to relay human-meaningful information.

The cell phone isn’t new either. However, the wide scale proliferation of mobile phones was paired by the addition of inexpensive digital cameras and access to the mobile internet. With the aide of relatively simple programs, mobile phones could learn to read matrix barcodes, and if the barcode contained a web address, the mobile phone could access the website right then. The gap between discovery and access was stopped.

The concept itself seems rather simple. However, it’s the applications that hold a great deal of potential. The matrix barcode, when used in mobile tagging, has several advantages over the written web address.

First, and perhaps foremost, the viewer does not know exactly what to expect when they view a matrix barcode without a camera which can read it. Sure, the viewer can garner some basic assumptions from context clues, but where the code points to is actually a mystery. To capitalize on the mystery, it is common for two-dimensional barcodes to be served without context clues on plain white billboards. For a viewer, the need to understand, the need to justify such a massive barcode, is prompt enough actively respond to the tag, pull out a cell phone and snap a photo. At that point, the website is a click away and the viewer has done a great deal of the leg work in become an actual consumer.

Another advantage of using a two-dimensional barcode over a printed web address: long and specific addresses are preferred rather than forbidden. Customers engaging in mobile tagging can be directed to specific landing pages, tailored not only for a mobile device, but also based on geo-location. When a unique two-dimensional barcode is created based on the location in which it will be displayed, or to match the content it is paired with, the end result is targeted information that is greatly more relevant to the viewer. The more relevant the content, the greater the chance of turning a visitor into a customer.

Not all two-dimensional barcodes are simply marketing tools, though. Nor do they have to contain a simple web address. In Japan, matrix barcodes have replaced nutritional labels on food packages – redirecting the viewer to a mobile webpage that contains that information instead. Another common use is location-specific information, which is particularly popular in the tourism industry. A two-dimensional barcode next to a work of art or historic building can direct visitors to information that is far too detailed and lengthy to fit on a sign.

In the end, the variety of uses for two-dimensional barcodes is largely limited only by the imagination of the creator. Much as the internet is freeing ideas and connecting individuals, the question one should be asking about mobile tagging is “How could the internet help my situation if it weren’t bound to a computer?” After all, this isn’t a technology that’s bound solely to Japan. Currently in Apple’s App store, there are no fewer than three mobile tagging programs for the device. Mobile tagging is coming.

Visit MaverickLabel.com for your barcode labels. Or you can read our 2-d barcode label below.