Wifi label printer
Discussion
Basically, I have a convenience store and then also 2 online stores. Until recently the two businesses were run completely independently of each other but now one of the online stores mirror a lot of stock that I have found sell well in the convenience store. As such, I now have duplicates of stock holding over the two premises.
The idea is that I could just move all the stock from the online site to the retail outlet freeing up space for more products at my home and giving the staff some extra work to do when they are not busy...who doesn't like extra work!
Obviously business POV is cost savings in not paying any more for someone to package items and frees me up to do other things.
The way I am thinking would be best to do this is to have the online site push the shipping label to some sort of WIFI label printer in the shop when i do the print job at home for the same thing, this bit I can already do in that I can set up different products to send their print job to different printers at my local address, but how easy is it to setup one of these WIFI label printers to print over the internet? I was thinking something connected to google cloud print would do the job and then using the cloud print service to show the printer as local to myself so that the job just gets pushed to it that way.
In short, without the rambling, would this actually work as I mean it to and has anyone had any experience of different wifi enabled label printers? I have a cheaper DYMO connected at home but it only works as a local printer connected straight to the machine your printing from, but it has also been faultless in many, many years of hard use.
Thanks in Advance!
The idea is that I could just move all the stock from the online site to the retail outlet freeing up space for more products at my home and giving the staff some extra work to do when they are not busy...who doesn't like extra work!
Obviously business POV is cost savings in not paying any more for someone to package items and frees me up to do other things.The way I am thinking would be best to do this is to have the online site push the shipping label to some sort of WIFI label printer in the shop when i do the print job at home for the same thing, this bit I can already do in that I can set up different products to send their print job to different printers at my local address, but how easy is it to setup one of these WIFI label printers to print over the internet? I was thinking something connected to google cloud print would do the job and then using the cloud print service to show the printer as local to myself so that the job just gets pushed to it that way.
In short, without the rambling, would this actually work as I mean it to and has anyone had any experience of different wifi enabled label printers? I have a cheaper DYMO connected at home but it only works as a local printer connected straight to the machine your printing from, but it has also been faultless in many, many years of hard use.
Thanks in Advance!
I’ve experience of two WiFi printers for labels. Both brother units I think. Both extremely temperamental and both ended up hooked back onto the wired network in short order.
Once they were working they were ok but every day seemed to bring a new connection/port/ip issue that drove everyone bonkers.
If you find a good one that doesn’t mind being switched off and stuff then be sure to let me know!
Once they were working they were ok but every day seemed to bring a new connection/port/ip issue that drove everyone bonkers.
If you find a good one that doesn’t mind being switched off and stuff then be sure to let me know!
One way would be to set up a VPN between your home and your office. this should be possible with free software but it is fiddly - especially with networked printers
May well be useful to be able to 'see' all of your computers from each site too.
Agree with the poster above, go wired for the printers if you can.
May well be useful to be able to 'see' all of your computers from each site too.
Agree with the poster above, go wired for the printers if you can.
Thanks for the replies guys!
At the shop we have 2 computers and a tablet, the two computers are the tills and are on their own secured networks along with the pin pads. I could open it up to allow VPN but I would rather not if i'm honest, the tills are backed up every transaction but if either go down or have a problem then it causes massive headaches, at the moment they both work. Plus, I have a feeling that if I opened a back door to allow me access then the maintenance company would it as an excuse not cover them if they did go down. (They attend and repair within 2 hours of reporting a fault, or drop in a new machine at their cost)
On a separate network which is less "locked down" we have a tablet and the CCTV etc. The tablet is used for looking up product details for customers, looking up products a customer has recommended we stock and for running the e-mails, social media, loyalty scheme sign ups etc.
I am open to the idea of a VPN to the tablet, setting the printer up on this and then doing it that way, just have to remind the staff to plug it back in when they put it down! In fairness, looking at the google cloud print, any printer should work if I had it wired with a computer permanently on at the other end as it just uses the end computer to send the job so this could be a good idea!
Thanks for the help!
At the shop we have 2 computers and a tablet, the two computers are the tills and are on their own secured networks along with the pin pads. I could open it up to allow VPN but I would rather not if i'm honest, the tills are backed up every transaction but if either go down or have a problem then it causes massive headaches, at the moment they both work. Plus, I have a feeling that if I opened a back door to allow me access then the maintenance company would it as an excuse not cover them if they did go down. (They attend and repair within 2 hours of reporting a fault, or drop in a new machine at their cost)
On a separate network which is less "locked down" we have a tablet and the CCTV etc. The tablet is used for looking up product details for customers, looking up products a customer has recommended we stock and for running the e-mails, social media, loyalty scheme sign ups etc.
I am open to the idea of a VPN to the tablet, setting the printer up on this and then doing it that way, just have to remind the staff to plug it back in when they put it down! In fairness, looking at the google cloud print, any printer should work if I had it wired with a computer permanently on at the other end as it just uses the end computer to send the job so this could be a good idea!
Thanks for the help!
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff