Rat Tail Tags and Butterfly Labels for Barcoding Jewelery

In the jewelry industry, keeping track of product is essential. Since most pieces are more costly and require more time to produce relative to other industries, jewelers have a heightened need for accurate inventory and product information.

Barcoding in the jewelry industry also requires an additional degree of finesse. Barcodes must be small and visually unobtrusive so as to not distract from the piece of jewelry in any away. The labels or tags used must be easy to remove so that the customer does not take home a product with a sticky residue, but at the same time, should not be too easy to take off. If tags tend to fall off, it may cause organizational problems and increase the likelihood of theft.

There are a variety of products used across the jewelry industry in inventory management, including handwritten adhesive tags, dot matrix labels and flat labels. However, the two barcoding solutions that we’ve found work best for most of our jewelry customers are rat-tail rags and butterfly labels.

Rat-tail tags provide a simple solution to jewelry labeling needs, and you’ve likely seen them in use. They consist of small barcode tags with a longer strip of paper extending from one side (see the below illustration). They can be attached to jewelry by slipping this “rat tail” end though a space in the piece of jewelry, and then folding the adhesive sides together, trapping the end of the rat tail between them.

Butterfly labels are also well suited for barcoding jewelry. These labels are shaped almost like dumbbells, and have two squares of adhesive connected by a thinner paper strip between them (illustration below). They are attached to jewelry by passing one side through a space in the jewelry, and adhering the two ends together.

There are also many variations within both of these categories. Identifying which labels will help you best organize, track and safeguard your inventory will depend on the kind of jewelry you are producing or selling.

We are happy to help companies of any size determine what type of labeling and barcoding would work best for them.

Reproduced with Permission of Alberta and Godex International. All is available by calling A1 Barcode Systems and the barcode guys.

All of the Godex Product Line is available at http://www.aonebar.com/godex/ and any labels and media that you need can be configured by us. You can also give us a call at 800.798.2042x0, or go on the website for Godex Desktop barcode printers or Godex Industrial barcode printers.