Polestar and William Gibbons have won contracts to print a number of magazines formerly produced at Wyndeham Heron and Southernprint, following a review by Future Publishing.

Unfortunately, buyers dont drive prices down, printers do. And while we all price ourselves into the ground, customers must realise that it has to come from somewhere and that somewhere can only be the job. Let them fill themselves up with non profitable work, it might hasten their demise. Then we can get back some kind of commercial sanity.

so what is new

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! I place regular spot work and contract work with all the UK offset printers, and you can't single out Polestar. In fact I rarely find them the cheapest, though the two that have lost Future generally under cut Polestar, and there are 2/ 3 others out there who I would always expect to pile in the lowest price. There is tons of capacity out there and I would expect printers to be hungry as is seen in the pricing I get. Long may it continue...........

All three printers are extremely good at printing, customer service and are competitive & we use all three. The rankings from our clients & our production team combined are as follows \( last 30 days): Polestar 9.29/10 Wm Gibbons 9.42/10 Southernprint 9.40/10 The fact is there are very few bad web-printers left in the UK, so it is down to the commercial view of the client who they chose based on price and strategic direction of their printers. Sad thing is that the timing looks like it is kicking Wyndham when they are down \( obviously not planned though!). Simon Biltcliffe MD WEBMART

Same old Polestar!

It would be naive to believe Future's final decision was on any other criteria than price. How else can you differentiate between Southernprint and Polestar when the tender paperwork is so detailed and paper is supplied? I applaud suppliers who refuse to accept work at loss making levels as St Ives did with Emap. Some of you may struggle to believe that yes you are reading the comments of a print manager but without financially secure, profitable suppliers I have no business...Maybe its time for UK web printers to start thinking like their European counterparts and fill their presses with work they are suited/equipped forrather than purelyvolume at huge discount, not to mention risk!

I seem to remember comments such as " there is no such thing as too low a price" and some kind of pricing structure based on a twenty year plan.

The reason there pricing is much of a muchness, is because so is their service. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but Web printers continue to be inflexible and production led, rather than selling an actual added value 'service' to the client. Despite the above though, you'll still hear the web guys saying 'it's these print managers who've driven the prices down' - Hello??? If you offer a commodity in the marketplace you'll continue to get paid commodity rates to match, if you offer a service and listen to what your clients actually really want \(apart from actual ink on paper) you'll generate better margins. Printers are sitting waiting for 'market forces' to drive up prices as appose to moving with the times, and I reckon they'll be waiting a long time Alan Partridge BBC Norwich Radio

You make some valid points alan, the price structure in web offset is currently driving out profit in the sector however there is very little that is new in economics [despite the eureka moments every now and then]. The current mis- match in supply and demand has driven the price down and both PM companies [not all] and fellow competitors have followed this trend. However the gap between supply and demand is closing fast [weekend rates and slots are tighter] and with a number of printers in serious trouble the supply side is shrinking fast.  UK buyers may believe that European plants will take up the shortfall [when it fully materializes] but they are having many problems themselves and in some ways are a little behind on the road travelled by many UK printers already. I do not believe that printers will have to wait a long time for "market forces" to correct the situation I believe it is already happening but time will be the best judge of that.

Your point on web houses being too production led is a valid one, but the industry is notoriously low on professional management and the many points of potential failure in the production process often lead to a cycle of panic-blind panic- chaos- sigh of relief-back to panic.

By your intelligent and obviously very well informed comments mighty wind, I can condifently assume you are far better placed in the web market than I to judge weather or not the scales are beggining to tip the other way as far as supply and demand are concerned. This is a subject that interests me greatly as I believe very much in economic cycles, and, after 10 years+ of over capacity in most areas of the Print industry and eroding margins as a result, are we slowly starting to turn a corner (led by web)?

If this happens in Web, it will almost certainly be followed by other areas of the industry (just as the original down turn did 10 years ago). I believe margins in Direct Mail manufacturing of which i have slightly more knowledge, 'bottomed out' about 18months ago and are already on the up, even in today's economic climate.

Whilst we are only seeing early signs of change and there is still along way to go, I don't think that many poeple out there actually realise what it could mean if capacity continues to shrink as companies go to the wall, and there continues to be a decline in skills throughout the industry.

It would almost certainly mean; some real margin back in the manufacturing side of the industry, less buying power from the 'print manager', end users being more keen to sign contracts with manufactures, capacity attracting premiums, etc.

Bi-products of this would eventually be; complacancy amongst manufacturers, service levels perhaps dropping,less competition, less innovation being offered, less flexibility being offered. In other words it becomes the 'sellers market'. 

Funnily enough, does the last paragraph remind you of anything? Kind of reminds me of the mid nineties before overcacity started biting in the first place. Interesting stuff.

Maybe we've all had it tough for long enough