Print Price Tags from POs: How to Keep Your Dymo Workflow After Stocky

One of the most overlooked features in Stocky is also one of the most time-saving: printing price tags and barcode labels directly from a purchase order after receiving inventory. For stores using Dymo LabelWriters or similar thermal printers, this single feature shaves hours off the weekly restocking process. When Shopify sunsets Stocky on August 31, 2026, this workflow disappears too.

Here is how the Stocky label printing workflow functioned, why it matters so much to brick-and-mortar efficiency, and what your options are for keeping it alive.

How Stocky’s price tag printing worked

In Stocky, label printing was baked into the receiving workflow. The process looked like this:

  1. Open a received PO — After marking items as received against a purchase order, Stocky presented the list of received line items.
  2. Select items to print — You could select all received items or pick specific ones. Each line item showed the variant, quantity received, and cost.
  3. Choose label format — Stocky supported several standard label sizes. The most common was 30mm x 89mm, which fits Dymo LabelWriter 450 and 550 series printers.
  4. Print — Labels printed with product name, variant (size/color), barcode (UPC or SKU-based), and retail price pulled directly from Shopify.

The key advantage was context. You were not printing labels for your entire catalog. You were printing labels specifically for the items you just received — the exact products that needed to be priced and shelved. This eliminated the step of figuring out “which products need labels?” because the PO already answered that question.

Bulk printing on receive

For stores receiving large shipments (50-200+ units), Stocky’s bulk print was essential. You could receive an entire PO and immediately print labels for every item in the shipment. A typical receive-and-label session for a 100-unit delivery took about 10 minutes — receiving on screen, printing labels, and applying them as you shelved products.

Without this integration, the same process involves receiving inventory in one system, then switching to a separate label app, searching for each product, setting quantities, and printing. For 100 items across 30-40 different variants, that easily doubles the time.

Why merchants love printing labels from POs

The PO-to-label pipeline is powerful because it eliminates decision-making and context-switching at the busiest moment in retail operations: when new stock arrives.

Receiving day is chaotic. Boxes need to be opened, quantities verified, items inspected, inventory updated, products priced, and everything shelved — often while the store is open and customers are shopping. Any workflow that combines steps or removes manual lookups directly translates into faster shelf-readiness and less time spent in the back room.

Printing from the PO also prevents a common problem: unlabeled inventory. When labeling is a separate step disconnected from receiving, it is easy to shelve products without labels, especially when you are in a rush. Customers pick up an unpriced item, cannot find a label, and either put it back or take up staff time asking for a price check. Integrating labels into receiving means every item gets a tag before it hits the shelf.

Alternative label printing options for Shopify

With Stocky going away, you have a few paths forward for label printing.

Option 1: Shopify App Store label apps

Several Shopify apps handle barcode and price tag printing:

  • Retail Barcode Labels (by Shopify) — A free app from Shopify that prints product labels. It supports Dymo printers and standard label sizes. The limitation is that it is not connected to any PO or receiving workflow. You select products from your catalog and print, but there is no “print what I just received” shortcut.
  • Third-party label apps — Apps like Easy Label Printing or Abarcode offer more label customization but again operate independently from any PO system. You will need to manually select which products to print after receiving.

Option 2: Dedicated inventory apps with label support

Some Stocky replacement apps include label printing as part of their receiving workflow. When evaluating a replacement for your PO and receiving workflow, check whether the app supports printing labels from received POs. This is the closest you will get to replicating the Stocky experience.

Option 3: Standalone label software

If you use a Dymo printer, Dymo’s own software (DYMO Connect) can print labels from CSV files. The workflow would be:

  1. Receive inventory and note what arrived (from your PO system or manually)
  2. Export or create a CSV with product name, variant, barcode, and price
  3. Import into DYMO Connect and print

This works but adds a manual step and requires maintaining CSV templates. It is best suited as a temporary workaround rather than a permanent solution.

Option 4: Combined inventory + label workflow

The ideal solution is a Stocky replacement that handles the full pipeline: receive against a PO, then print labels for received items without leaving the app. This preserves the speed and simplicity that made Stocky’s approach so effective.

Dymo LabelWriter setup for Shopify retail

If you are already using a Dymo printer with Stocky, your hardware setup will carry over to most alternatives. Here is a quick reference for setting up or verifying your configuration.

  • Dymo LabelWriter 550 — Current model, USB-connected, prints up to 62 labels per minute. Works with most Shopify label apps.
  • Dymo LabelWriter 450 — Previous generation, still widely used and well-supported. Functionally identical for label printing purposes.
  • Dymo LabelWriter 550 Turbo — Higher speed option for stores with very high label volume.

Label stock

For retail price tags, the most common Dymo label sizes are:

  • 30336 (25mm x 54mm) — Small multipurpose labels, good for compact price tags
  • 30252 (28mm x 89mm) — Address-sized labels, the most popular for retail tags with barcode + price
  • 30334 (32mm x 57mm) — Medium multipurpose, a good balance between readability and size

Driver setup

  1. Download DYMO Connect software from Dymo’s website
  2. Connect the printer via USB
  3. Install the driver when prompted
  4. Print a test label to verify alignment

Most Shopify label apps detect Dymo printers automatically once the driver is installed. If you are using a web-based app (like Shopify’s own Retail Barcode Labels), printing happens through the browser’s print dialog with the Dymo selected as the destination printer.

What to include on your labels

A good retail price label needs to communicate key information at a glance while remaining scannable by your POS system. Here is what to include:

Product name — Keep it concise. “Blue Oxford Shirt” rather than “Men’s Classic Fit Long Sleeve Oxford Button-Down Shirt in Navy Blue.” Truncate to fit the label.

Variant info — Size and color are the most common. Display these prominently so staff and customers can quickly identify the right variant.

Barcode — Either the product’s UPC/EAN (if you use manufacturer barcodes) or a Shopify-generated barcode based on the SKU. The barcode must be large enough and high-contrast enough for your POS scanner to read reliably. Code 128 format is the most common for internal SKU-based barcodes.

Retail price — The price the customer pays. Pull this from Shopify’s price field, not the cost field. Make sure the price on the label matches what your POS will ring up — if you have location-specific pricing or active discounts, verify this before printing.

SKU — Useful as a human-readable backup if the barcode will not scan. Staff can type the SKU into the POS manually.

Optional: Cost or margin info — Some merchants print a small encoded cost indicator on the tag for internal use (using a letter-substitution code, for example). This helps floor staff make markdown decisions without pulling up the product in the system.

The ideal workflow: receive, print, shelve

The most efficient receiving workflow minimizes the number of times you handle each product. Here is the gold standard:

  1. Shipment arrives — Open boxes and loosely sort items by product/variant on your receiving table.
  2. Open the PO in your app — Pull up the purchase order you are expecting.
  3. Scan or count received items — Mark each line item as received, adjusting quantities if the shipment is short or over.
  4. Print labels — Immediately after receiving, print labels for everything you just checked in. The app knows exactly what was received and how many labels to print.
  5. Label and shelve — Apply labels to products and move them directly to the sales floor.

The entire process for a 50-unit shipment with 15-20 different variants should take 15-20 minutes: 5 minutes to sort and verify, 5 minutes to receive in the app, 2 minutes to print labels, and 5-10 minutes to label and shelve.

Compare that to a disconnected workflow — receive in one system, switch to a label app, search for each product, set label quantities manually, print, then shelve — and you are looking at 30-40 minutes for the same shipment. Over a year of weekly restocking, that is 15-20 hours of extra labor.

Preparing for the switch

Before Stocky shuts down, take these steps to protect your label printing workflow:

  1. Document your current label format — Note which label size you use, what information appears on the label, and the layout.
  2. Test Shopify’s Retail Barcode Labels app — Install it now and print a test batch. Verify that the barcodes scan correctly with your POS hardware.
  3. Evaluate replacement apps — When choosing a Stocky replacement for your PO workflow, specifically ask whether the app supports printing labels from received purchase orders. This feature is a major time saver that is easy to overlook during evaluation.
  4. Stock up on labels — Make sure you have plenty of the correct label stock on hand. The last thing you want during a tool transition is to also be troubleshooting label compatibility.

The Dymo label workflow is one of those “small” features that has an outsized impact on daily operations. It is worth making sure your Stocky replacement preserves it.