Setting Up ShipStation With a Thermal Printer: A UK Seller's Guide

ShipStation is popular with UK sellers who ship across more than one marketplace, since it consolidates orders from Amazon, eBay, Etsy and a direct storefront into a single dispatch queue. Getting it printing reliably on a thermal printer takes a bit more setup than a single-courier tool like Click & Drop, but it's straightforward once done.

Connecting your printer

ShipStation supports direct thermal printing through its desktop client rather than relying purely on browser printing, which tends to be more reliable for batch jobs. Install the ShipStation Connect app, confirm your thermal printer is recognised, and — as with any thermal printer setup — confirm the driver's media type is set to direct thermal rather than transfer, covered in our direct thermal guide.

Setting the label template to 4×6

ShipStation's label templates need to match your physical label stock exactly. Most UK courier integrations within ShipStation default to a 4×6 (100 × 150mm) template already, but it's worth explicitly checking this in your label settings rather than assuming — a mismatch here causes the same cropping and scaling issues covered in our 4×6 size guide.

Batch printing from multiple marketplaces

One of ShipStation's main advantages is printing labels for orders from several marketplaces in a single batch, rather than logging into each platform separately. This is where driver and spooling issues tend to show up first if they exist — see our printer driver mistakes guide for the most common causes if batches start stalling partway through.

UK-specific gotchas

ShipStation is a US-built platform, so a few settings need explicit attention for UK sellers: confirming your default currency and VAT settings are correct, and checking customs declaration fields are configured correctly for any non-UK shipments, since these default to US-centric assumptions unless changed. For UK marketplace-specific label requirements, our marketplace requirements guide covers Amazon, eBay and Etsy specifically.

Troubleshooting print jobs

If labels print correctly as single test jobs but fail in larger batches, it's very rarely a ShipStation-specific issue — the same driver and spooler causes that affect any batch printing job apply here too, covered in more detail in our bulk printing guide.