How to Label Your Material Inventory Locations (With a Simple 3-Part Code)

You know the feeling. You’re mid-production, recipe in front of you, and you need the fragrance oil. But which shelf is it on? Is it in the box by the door, or was that the one you moved to the garage?

A proper inventory location system fixes this. And the good news is it’s a lot simpler than it sounds. You’re basically doing what every warehouse in the world does, just at your scale. A home studio, a rented workshop, a basement shelf unit: the same three-part code works for all of them.

Last updated: May 2026

Why a labelling system matters more than you think

It’s easy to assume that because you know where everything is right now, you don’t need labels. But that assumes you’ll always be the only one touching your stock, and that your memory will stay reliable when you’re rushing to fill a big order at 11pm.

A labelling system gives every material a permanent address. When something is in the right place, it takes seconds to find. When it’s been moved, you know immediately. And when you start tracking bin locations in your inventory software, you get an instant audit trail: run a stocktake and the software tells you which shelf to check, not just which material to count.

This is worth setting up once and then largely forgetting about. A good system hums along quietly in the background.

What is an inventory location?

An inventory location is simply the physical spot where you store a material. Your workshop might have a dozen locations: a shelf unit by the window, a set of drawers under the bench, a rack in the hallway. Each distinct spot can become a named location in your system.

Before you set anything up, do a quick audit of your storage. If things are disorganised right now, this is a good excuse to start fresh. Go through your inventory, remove old stock you’ll never use, and make sure each material is consolidated into one container (not split across two half-empty bags). Group similar items together: wax with wax, fragrance with fragrance, packaging with packaging.

Once your physical storage makes sense, you’re ready to assign codes.

How to label your inventory locations

Follow these steps in order. They build on each other.

Step 1: Map your zones. A zone is a high-level storage area: your workshop, garage, basement shelf, hallway cupboard. Each distinct space gets a short code. Use whatever makes sense to you: a letter (“W” for workshop, “G” for garage), a number (1, 2, 3), or a word abbreviation. Keep it short. One or two characters is plenty.

Step 2: Identify sections within each zone. Within each zone, break things down further. A bookshelf, a set of drawers, a storage unit: each of these becomes a section. Number them from left to right, or top to bottom, whichever is intuitive for you. So Section 1 might be the top shelf, Section 2 the middle shelf, Section 3 the bottom shelf.

Step 3: Assign positions within sections. This is the most granular level. The specific spot inside a section where a material lives. A position might be a bin, a jar, a drawer, or just a slot on a shelf. Number or letter these sequentially within each section.

Step 4: Create your location codes. Combine the three parts as ZONE-SECTION-POSITION. Write each code on a label and stick it to the physical location.

Step 5: Assign a location code to each material. Go through your materials list and assign the appropriate code. If you’re using inventory software, enter the bin location field for each material. If you’re tracking by spreadsheet, add a column.

Step 6: Print and attach labels. Print durable labels (see below for options) and stick them to each bin, shelf, or container. Make sure they’re visible from a standing position. You don’t want to be crouching to read them mid-production.

Three real-world examples for makers

The zone-section-position code sounds abstract until you see it applied to a real space. Here are three common setups:

Home studio (single room): You have one studio room (“S”) with two shelf units. Shelf unit 1 has three shelves, shelf unit 2 has two shelves. Positions within each shelf are numbered left to right. Your red cosmetic-grade mica stored in the fourth bin on the top shelf of unit 1 gets the code S-11-04. Your fragrance oils in the second bin on the middle shelf of unit 1 are S-12-02.

Rented workshop (two areas): You use the main workshop (“W”) for production materials and a small storeroom (“R”) for packaging and bulk stock. In the workshop, your dye shelf is section 3, and blue dye sits in position A. Code: W-S3-A. In the storeroom, your bulk wax is on the first rack, first position: R-R1-01.

Basement + workshop (two zones): Basement (“B”) holds overflow stock and seasonal materials, workshop (“W”) holds active production stock. Bulk fragrance concentrate in the basement, second shelf, third position: B-S2-03. The working fragrance oil decanted for current production is in the workshop, bench drawer 1, slot 2: W-D1-02.

The specific characters don’t matter. What matters is consistency: once you’ve decided on the pattern, apply it everywhere.

Types of inventory labels

There’s no single right label type. It mostly comes down to how often your locations change and how durable they need to be.

Adhesive labels are the most practical starting point. Cheap, available in any office supply store, and easy to customise with a label printer. Good for stable shelf units and storage bins. If you’re just starting out, a basic adhesive label with a handwritten or printed code is completely fine.

Magnetic labels are worth considering if you have metal shelving or if you rearrange your storage regularly. They peel off without residue, which is handy when you reorganise.

Barcode labels become useful once you’re using inventory software that supports scanning. You can print barcodes from most inventory apps (Craftybase included) and then scan them to pull up a material’s details instantly without typing anything.

Metal labels make sense for external storage or anywhere labels might get wet or dirty, like a garage or a laundry room used for storage. They outlast adhesive labels by years.

RFID labels provide real-time tracking without line-of-sight scanning. They’ve come down in price considerably over the past few years, but for most small maker setups they’re still more technology than you need. Worth revisiting once your volume justifies it.

Start with adhesive or magnetic labels. You can always upgrade later.

Implementing a BIN system for your inventory

If you already have some organisation but just haven’t formalised it yet, the zone-section-position system fits straight over what you already have.

Using a three-part code (ZONE-SECTION-POSITION) is recommended because it’s easy to read and adapts well as your business grows. If you add a new zone next year, just extend the scheme. You don’t need to renumber everything.

Tips for getting started:

• Write your full location map on paper or in a spreadsheet before printing any labels. It’s faster to fix a naming mistake on paper than to reprint 30 labels.
• Use the same code format throughout. If Zone codes are one letter and Section codes are one number, don’t suddenly use two letters for a new zone.
• Assign locations to every material in your inventory, even if you only have a handful. Doing it now is much easier than retrofitting it later.

How Craftybase handles bin locations

Once you have your physical location codes sorted, enter them into your inventory software so the two stay in sync.

In Craftybase, you can assign a bin location to each material directly from the material record. When you run a stocktake, the stocktake report shows each material alongside its bin location. You know exactly where to go to count it, rather than hunting through your whole studio.

If a material gets moved, update its bin location in Craftybase. Takes ten seconds. Now your digital inventory and your physical shelves match again.

Craftybase also tracks each time a material is adjusted or used in a manufacture, so your bin location records stay connected to actual usage data. Not just a static list. That means when a material gets low, you know which shelf to check and roughly when you last used it.

For step-by-step guidance on labelling your materials themselves (not just the locations), see How to Label Your Craft Materials: 7 Tips for a Tidy Workshop. And if you’re curious about using barcodes or QR codes to scan materials directly into your records, How to Use QR Codes for Inventory Management walks through the whole process.

Tips for maintaining an effective labelling system

Setting it up is the hard part. Keeping it current is mostly just discipline.

Keep it consistent. Use the same naming conventions for every new location you add. One off-format code creates confusion when someone else (or future-you) needs to find something quickly.

Review when you reorganise. Any time you move storage around, update the bin location codes in your software at the same time. Don’t let them drift.

Clear outdated labels immediately. Old labels are worse than no labels. If a shelf gets repurposed, remove the old label before sticking a new one on.

Do a quarterly audit. Walk through your storage, compare it to your inventory software’s bin location list, and flag anything that’s drifted. It takes 20 minutes and saves a lot of frustration.

Use quality labels in rough conditions. If your storage is in a garage, a damp basement, or anywhere with temperature swings, use labels rated for those conditions. A label that falls off after six months is wasted effort.

A good location labelling system is something you set up once, tweak occasionally, and rely on every single day. The three-part code is flexible enough to grow with your business, whether you’re working from a corner of your kitchen or filling a dedicated workshop.

Frequently Asked Questions