Hot cocoa and thermal underwear season officially has commenced in many parts of the country as early snow falls mount and winter thermometers threaten to dip below zero degrees. In the partner distribution channel, the term thermal has an industrial printing meaning that has nothing to do with “long johns.” Nonetheless Heat Miser-related, the thermal-transfer process uses heat to melt ink from a ribbon onto various media for such applications as durable labels, barcodes, receipts, and asset tags.
Independent dealerships are uncovering new revenues with the thermal tech. “Dealers have started to talk to us more about thermal business,” Larry White, president and CEO of Toshiba America Business Solutions, told The Cannata Report earlier this year. The OEM inherited its thermal printing technology in 1979, he noted. In a town hall online meeting with dealers last week, White updated his comments with this fact: More than 65 million shipping labels are printed daily and, during the holidays, that number typically jumps to 85 million per day.
Statistics with vast numbers like those leave little doubt about opportunity for dealers within the label/barcode market, which Toshiba wants to grow to $50 million by 2029. Early this month, the OEM expanded its industrial label printer portfolio with the release of new BX models. The versatile, flathead BX420D and BX420T models and the ultra-high-resolution BX430 deliver native PDF direct printing and cloud-powered intelligence for transportation, warehouse, manufacturing, and retail professionals, Toshiba says.
“There is massive market opportunity for copier dealers of all sizes willing to make the upfront investment in thermal label and barcode printers,” adds 36-year industry veteran Marc Theaman. Theaman began his career as a regional VP with IKON Office Solutions (later acquired by Ricoh) back in 1989 and became director of Toshiba programs and partner management in February 2024; he had job stops at Kyocera and Xerox along the way. Dealer owners looking to improve profitability should consider adding a thermal print strategy to their 2026 plans, he urges. Why?
Thick margins and print-centric
The label business features high margins and recurring revenue, according to Theaman. “Dealers can expect margins of up to 40% on hardware,” he says. “The best part is that they [dealers] already know this business. It’s not an ‘adjacent business;’ it’s print . . . that seamlessly integrates into MPS [managed print services].” He explained that Toshiba has developed a cost-per-label program for dealers “that makes MPS a piece of cake. Just add it to the contract!”
Open-minded dealers, including Adams Remco (Indiana, Michigan, and Florida), Pearson-Kelly Technology (Missouri and Arkansas), and national managed services provider Proven IT are among the resellers getting on board. In addition, a Toshiba dealer in the South is expected to sign on soon for thermal-only authorization. Over the past year alone, Theaman reports channel barcode/label revenue growth exceeding 25% among existing Toshiba dealers that are selling more thermal, including more than half of Business Technology Association (BTA) members who have made the label leap. Approximately 20% of the OEM’s 200 independent dealers (about 70 dealerships) are participating in thermal label printer products. There also has been traction from non-Toshiba dealers, he notes.
Asking your existing customers what they do for labels can open a side door, says Theaman. “None of these machines are on contract, and it’s a great way to eliminate the competition who can’t sell them,” he points out. To help dealers assimilate and work the business, Toshiba has created a “Thermal Launch Package.” The $10,000 investment includes on-site service training, sales training, marketing collateral, and “equipment to show,” although there is no quota, Theaman stresses. The virtual sales portion, which is facilitated by Kingston Training Group, includes a prospecting class with two lead lists: one for the healthcare vertical market and another for manufacturing.
As a label social-media evangelist, earlier this year Theaman started posting weekly #ThermalThursday content on LinkedIn. Shipping labels are mission-critical, he acknowledges. “Business stops when labels stop. Companies cannot ship [product] without them,” he says.
So, as a dealer, how can you not put these printing devices on a maintenance agreement, Theaman asks. The math adds up. In addition to the nearly 20 billion shipping labels produced annually, some 15 million specimen labels are printed each day in the healthcare sector, he adds, plus there are visitor badges and patient wristbands. “Dealers could be getting 20% of that share,” he observes.
Some of the world’s leading shipping and retail companies use Toshiba’s label and barcode printing technology, with hundreds of thousands of units installed. In early 2025, the OEM took over the thermal fleet of a large hospital in the U.S. Southeast, which is an existing customer. White reports, “That deal resulted in $100,000 worth of annuity revenue this year. That’s what we do best: Go in and take over fleets of products, then service and upgrade them.”
Meanwhile, Zebra Technologies enjoys a 90% share of thermal label printer market, but White argues that complacency often comes with such dominance.
“We know how to treat dealers, and it’s time to take business back from Zebra and their VARs [value-added resellers],” concludes Theaman, noting that the Toshiba device technology is a leading-edge “equipment upgrade … [that] speaks the Zebra programming language [ZPL].”
It can be difficult to make money with Zebra, he explains. “There often are no service contracts on them [Zebra label printers], and people tend to run ’em until they die,” he says. Plus, Toshiba’s thermal printers can print PDF labels which, Theaman believes, is the future.
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