E-commerce Leader NordicGear EU Transforms Labeling with Laser Printing

“We were shipping across seven EU countries with three carriers and a patchwork of label templates,” says Lara, Logistics Director at NordicGear EU. “When you move volume fast, tiny inconsistencies snowball.” The team decided to standardize on **sheet labels** and rethink the workflow around Laser Printing. Not a trendy move—just the pragmatic one they could actually maintain.

I sat down with Lara and her print engineer, Tomas, at their Rotterdam hub. Pallets hummed by while we talked about adhesives, GS1 barcodes, and why the most sustainable change is often the least glamorous. Here's where it gets interesting: the biggest gains came not from new hardware, but from decisions about layout, substrates, and how teams “own” label data.

Company Overview and History

Q: Who is NordicGear EU, and what did the label environment look like a year ago?
A: “We’re a mid-size e-commerce brand in outdoor apparel,” Lara explains. “Roughly 8,000–12,000 orders per day, seasonal peaks double that. We used rolls for bulk, but most of our picking and return workflows depended on sheeted labelstock. We printed on A4 and A5 in Laser Printing, with some Inkjet for special campaigns. It was fast enough, but the system creaked whenever we added a new SKU family.”

Their sustainability push started in 2022: FSC paper where feasible, reduction of mixed-material waste, and a European liner take-back pilot. Labels sound small, yet they touch every parcel. Shifting to a standard set of Labelstock on Glassine liners for sheet labels, and auditing every template, became the wedge that moved larger change.

Quality and Consistency Issues

Q: What was breaking on the floor?
A: “Color drift and misalignment,” Tomas says. “We had FPY hovering around 84% for multi-up small address labels, and waste bins that filled faster near shift change.” Registration/edge curl issues on certain batches created die-cut lift-offs. Operators compensated on the fly—too many tweaks, too little control.”

They also wrestled with knowledge spread. “Ask five teams how to print avery labels and you’d hear five answers,” Lara admits. “Some used carrier-specific PDFs; others used in-app layouts. Even the instruction ‘place the appropriate labels in their respective targets.’ wasn’t consistently understood. We weren’t failing; we were fraying.”

There was another pinch point: ad-hoc labeling for shelf picks and returns. Staff could print sheet labels in minutes, but every deviation multiplied errors down the line. Barcodes scanned, but sometimes not from the first angle. In a high-mix environment, one rescanned parcel might not matter—unless it happens a thousand times a day.

Solution Design and Configuration

Q: Why Laser Printing and what changed in the stack?
A: “We doubled down on Laser Printing for its predictable toner lay and sheet handling,” Tomas says. “We standardized three A4 templates: 2-up large shipping (carrier-compliant), 8-up mid-size returns, and the classic avery 30 labels per sheet for bin, shelf, and SKU stickers. All three ran on a single FSC-certified paper face with permanent adhesive, Glassine release—one vendor, one spec.”

They added a preflight step. “Operators load a template; the system validates GS1 fields, ISO/IEC 18004 (QR), and DataMatrix as required. The software enforces quiet zones and print margins specific to each cut path. That simple guardrail trimmed the on-press ‘guessing.’ It also meant we could answer the very practical question of how to make shipping labels across carriers without custom PDFs for each one.”

Q: Any sustainability levers beyond paper?
A: “Yes. We sourced EU-made Labelstock with an available liner recycling program. Sleep-mode timing on printers shifted—small change, but it cut idle energy. And we set batch windows for variable data—less stop-start, fewer reprints.” Based on insights from sheet labels’ work with European e-commerce brands, they also adopted a simple run rule: if a job can wait 20 minutes without hurting SLA, it waits and runs with its adjacent batch.

Quantitative Results and Metrics

Q: What moved the needle?
A: “FPY moved from ~84% to about 93–95% on small-format layouts,” Tomas notes. “Waste rate on label sheets fell by roughly 22–28%, depending on the week. Throughput for mixed jobs is now 5–6k labels/hour versus 3–4k before, because changeovers now average 6–8 minutes, down from about 15.” He’s careful to add: “Those ranges flex during peak season. We’re not claiming a miracle.”

From a sustainability lens, the footprint per label is now about 12–18% lower, combining liner recovery and steadier batches (kWh/label tends to drop when start-stop cycles shrink). CO₂/pack data is still maturing—two quarters is a short window. Customer-facing outcomes help too: first-scan read rates on QR/DataMatrix went from the high 80s to the mid 90s (%), cutting rescans. And the SOP now literally says, “place the appropriate labels in their respective targets.” It sounds basic. It works.