One critical feature missing from the new Shopify PO & Transfers experience is the ability to print barcode labels directly from a purchase order. This was something that was possible in Stocky.
When receiving inventory, being able to select items from a PO and immediately print labels is a huge time-saver. Without it, you have to cross-reference the PO manually and print labels separately, which adds significant time to the receiving workflow.
For stores with large catalogs or high receiving volume, this is a dealbreaker for adopting the new PO/Transfers tool.
Request: Add a “Print Labels” action within a Purchase Order that integrates with the Retail Barcode Labels app (or native label printing), allowing merchants to print labels for items on that specific PO — ideally with quantity pre-filled from the PO line items.
You mentioned Stocky offers this so if you’re entertaining apps that can not only print labels from the PO, but also ONLY the labels you need - and in the configuration/layout you need them to be in - then look to FyreTrail to do this.
If you’re looking for Shopify to add this then I would say they probably won’t as that would require a lot of functionality they do not currently offer (i.e. label printing, custom label layouts, etc.).
On another angle with regard to how you can do this - there are a few apps out there that deal with JUST printing labels. If you only want label printing from an app and not the full functionality that Stocky offered, then I think there are many choices that stick to just label printing.
DougInOr’s right on FyreTrail being closest off-the-shelf. The reason Shopify probably won’t ship native PO-to-barcode is label hardware is fragmented (Zebra ZPL, Brother QL, Dymo, sheet-paper Avery formats), and printer protocols differ enough that a “works for everyone” UI becomes a tax on every PO change.
If you want to roll your own without FyreTrail, working path:
Pull PO line items via Admin API (Stocky’s PO migration added a PurchaseOrder type)
Render labels client-side using JsBarcode or bwip-js for Code128/EAN drawing
Print via browser print dialog with a 1:1-sized CSS @page rule for your sheet size (Avery 5160 for example)
That gives immediate print without a backend dependency; you only need a small custom-app page that takes a PO ID and renders labels. Two days of work for a Shopify dev.
For a Zebra/Brother direct path, both expose Web USB or Network Print APIs (Zebra Browser Print SDK is the well-supported one), letting you send ZPL/PCL straight to the printer without the OS print dialog. Cleaner for warehouse staff who shouldn’t have to deal with a print preview.
The “select items + immediately print” UX Stocky had is a 1-click flow on top of that data path. Not a Shopify platform limitation, just a UI someone has to build.
As a tip, you can simplify this by exporting purchase order line items and use the Retail Barcode Labels app to bulk print by variant, you can filter by SKU or by vendor. Alternatively, recreate PO items into a temporary collection so labels can be printed batch from the admin, for quantities received. For those still on Stocky, it is still the most native way workflow to print PO based labels. This cuts down on manual matching and it also gets around the current limitation in the new transfers experience.
This new PO system is maddening. I can no longer sort my POs by expected receive date which is critical for our business. And, I agree, needing to just receive & hit print labels (just send the products to the Barcode Label App w/ ease) needs to be an option. I need both of these functions w/out all the craziness of PO software. One store who also sells online. I want to see my POs as a list w/ easy sort by creation date, expected receive date or vendor…also easy search. I’d like to search by product name (find POs w/ that product) or search for vendor and see all POs w/ a vendor name pop up. Really want the ease of old Shopify PO system w/ ability to print labels after checking in inventory.
@SHOPVERVE What you’re asking for is a lot more than what the OP was looking for, but yeah, you need to check out FyreTrail too because it was made to handle POs in all the ways you’re looking for. Searching, sorting, printing, tracking, etc. I don’t mean to push it, honestly just trying to help your requests specifically. Go check it out - you’ll like the functionality it has and it will solve the problems you’re detailing out.