You’ve chosen the shelves and displays that you want to showcase your goods on, now what about pricing them? Having a price on a item you plan to sell does enhance the customer’s shopping experience, as not many people like to have to go and physically ask for price (or if they do, they know it is going to be expensive).

There are many labeling products on the market to make your pricing job as easy as possible. There are pricing guns of various descriptions to help you price foods, knick knacks, and pretty much anything that can’t be tagged.

If you need to ‘tag’ your products (for example clothes) then you will need to pick from a selection of tagging guns. You might even consider writing prices on tags (especially sales prices), attaching them with safety pins, or safety ties. Decisions like this obviously be based on time considerations, how much stock you have and how often the prices are likely to change.

The importance of making pricing easier has been recognized since 1899 when the first pricing device was patented. Since then the efficiency of pricing guns and tagging guns have come on from strength to strength. Now pricing guns are not just designed for pricing, but inventory and date coding too.

Pricing guns are good for food, as often you can get guns with two or three lines, so you can not only but the price, but the expiry date and/or lot number too. Also some pricing guns come with two lines, one that has a price with a big red cross through and the other that is the new price. Obviously this isn’t just a pricing method for food, but many other types of merchandise too.

Tagging guns are best for clothes and anything with fabric that allows a tag to be put through it. Of course you should make sure that where you place the tag won’t make a noticeable hole on the clothing, so you always put it in a seam, or even better the clothes label, where it won’t make any holes when the tag is removed.

You get two types of tagging guns, which are the Fine Fabric tagging gun and the Standard Tagging Gun. You have to choose one or the other because the needles you buy for them are not interchangeable.

Standard tagging guns can be used for ‘tougher’ general fabrics like jeans, pillow, cuddly toys, sweaters and items made from heavier materials. Fine Fabric tagging guns can be used with delicate fabrics.

I am just going to run over briefly here, how to use tagging guns safely. You don’t need me to tell you that needles are sharp, but it can be beneficial when using a tagging gun to wear leather gloves, just in case.

Here are the instructions on using tagging guns successfully, which will make sense, I promise, when you have the tagging gun and tags in front of you!

1. Put the ‘T’ end of the tag in the ‘T’ slot on the tagging gun and push it in as far as it will go.
2. Next take of the needle cover
3. Gently squeeze the trigger of the tagging gun to make sure everything is working as it should. If it’s not working make sure that the tag is pushed in far enough, as this is usually the cause of a tagging gun not working properly.
4. When you have the gun working properly, put a price tag over the needle, and put the needle into the fabric (in a place that won’t damage the garment or fabric)
5. Then squeeze the trigger of the tagging gun, which will insert the tag
6. Slowly pull the tagging gun away from the fabric, and get ready to tag the next item.
7. Lastly make sure that you put the needle guard over the needle of the tagging gun when you are finished.