Skill Required for Web to Print Solution – Technology or Digital Marketing?
Digital printing has revolutionised the printing industry, bringing about some positive changes in the print ordering patterns. It encourages more and more people to opt for printing, as they can now print lower volumes, unlike earlier, when offset printing was the only method. Needless to say, offset printing is still more affordable for higher volumes. Overall, the printing industry has benefited through the creation of a new segment (for short print runs), which was non-existent with offset.
Most people viewed the Internet and online exchange of information as a threat to the printing industry, with the assumption that people would print less and prefer everything to be done virtually. However, reality was far from it! A clear understanding of technology and its effective adoption actually helps to drive more business.
The launch of online printing sites (mostly by non-printing companies) posed a threat for retail business. It led to retail businesses shifting to companies using Web To Print (W2P) technology. This was further intensified by the growing popularity of Internet, E-commerce and now Mobile commerce.
On a positive note, the growing awareness about W2P has encouraged several vendors/developers and technology companies to invest hugely. The good news is that W2P storefronts are now available at affordable rates of about US$99-US$299 a month. Even a small digital print shop can now also afford to offer it to their local customers as a value-added service. The cost would be similar to utility bills, like telephone or electricity.
Selecting the right kind of W2P tool can really help your business grow multi-fold, leading to the generation of multiple revenue centres! Want to understand what we are trying to say? Read on...
Say you own a digital print shop offering colour prints and commercial print products like business cards, letterheads, envelopes and brochures. Most of the time, you would have customers walk in to your store with a flash drive or share a printable file on email. At times, they might expect you to make some minor modification or edit before the final print. This could keep you busy with small print jobs, leaving little time to introduce more personalised print products, which can be offered using your current setup or investing in small sub-lamination machines.
Several W2P vendors provide online editors suitable only for particular print products. In addition, they expect clients to design templates in their browser-based editor, which is not as powerful as desktop publishing software. Some of them offer facilities to create any kind of products / templates / layouts / designs. These can be printed through a PDF file on a single sheet, front-back, and even multi-fold plus using sub-lamination machine on different surfaces.
While you may already be providing some of these services in addition to commercial printing, it is difficult to cater to multiple customers simultaneously. However, with W2P solution, you don’t need to restrict yourself to a few products or surfaces. It is easy to pre-upload designs of up to 40+ products, and more on a variety of surfaces, while retaining your innovation and creativity!
Contact us to learn how you can broaden your offerings to existing customers and generate orders from new customers.