Search results matching tag 'web-to-print'

Web-to-print world is getting busier

2288289 — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:46:00 GMT

Gosh, aren't things getting busy in the world of web-to-print?

Most intrigued to read about Tangent's plans to create some sort of B2B print supersite (or should that be superwebsite) with its Printed.com offering, which will replace the Digital Print Partnership. The bit of Tangent that includes the print ops grew sales by 27% to £17.6m in its most recent results, wonder what sort of growth they can put on with this revamped offering?

Over at £17m turnover Printing.com (anyone else get the feeling there could be some sort of imminent SEO/Google adwords war viz printing.com and printed.com?) they are rolling out new online trading channels including Flyerzone.co.uk, Flyerzone.fr (France) and BrandDemand in France with plans to roll that out in the UK too.

And that juggernaut of cheap printing via the internet, Vistaprint, has just become even bigger with the acquisition of Albumprinter. No doubt the folks at Photobox, which paid £120m for Moonpig.com less than four months ago, will be watching that move intently.

Printcos who don't have ambitions to set up an online mega-brand may think "but what's this got to do with me?" The answer is two-fold, you only have to look at the size of Vistaprint ($817m turnover) to see how much bread-and-butter print work can migrate to such a provider. Secondly, web-to-print isn't all about the sort of public shop windows exemplified above. It can also be used to fantastic effect for creating private web-to-print sites for specific clients, a useful way to help printers create stronger links with key customers.

Sure, it won't be for everyone, but this type of web-to-print application really should be on the ‘need to know' list of most printcos if it isn't already.

Liberation via shared resources

2288289 — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:47:00 GMT

Will the principle of 'shared resource' find favour with UK printing companies?

We should find out soon enough because this is exactly what Precision Printing is doing with its tie-up with Italian firm Pixartprinting, to bring the Pixart-style web-to-print offering to the UK.

It seems that here on the small island we've been slower to embrace this sort of model than our continental cousins. Talking to Precision MD Gary Peeling about the offering at Northprint, he made a good pitch. The investment dilemma for printers is tricky enough, never mind the fact that for many companies it's proving impossible to attain the funding they need to re-invest.

As Peeling sees it, the shared resource option gives a printco access to the latest printing technology, instantly, and pretty much risk-free. "Printers can develop a market without risk or commitment," he says. Early customers seem to like it, especially the fact that Pixart doesn't insist on its own livery and jobs arrive in a plain wrapping.

It's going to require something of a change in mindset for some people, and perhaps a leap of faith too. But I can see the appeal. "Once you get your mind around the fact that you don't need to own the equipment to get active in a market, it's quite liberating," Peeling reports.

It's another variant in the list of new business models for print that we all need to pay attention to.

Web-to-conventional-print is a need-to-know

2288289 — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:44:00 GMT

Until recently, if the words web-to-print were mentioned then my thoughts automatically turned to the sort of web-to-digital-print model exemplified by Moonpig, Moo and Snapfish, among others.

I've revised my thinking, though, because it seems to me that web-to-conventional-print is one of the most interesting - and potentially impactful - business models for the future shape of the industry. With this model multiple short-run jobs are ganged up on the same offset sheet. It may even be that VLF offset presses are used, as is the case with one well-known continental exponent of this model, Germany's FlyerAlarm.

This ganging up of jobs on offset presses is what Printing.com has been doing for years, although without the snazzy internet front-end. It recently added this type of functionality and I'm not surprised: look at the growth of Vistaprint, which has both offset and digital print kit at its two manufacturing hubs. This business has grown and grown and grown over the past five years: from sales of $152m in 2006 to $670m in 2010. The profit on that was $68m, and its average order value is $34.

It goes without saying that the secret of success in this ‘industrial printing of short runs' space is sophisticated software and automation systems whereby technology (and the customer themselves when entering the details) does most of the work, and human intervention is kept to the absolute minimum.

I'm not aware of a UK equivalent of FlyerAlarm (please get in touch if there is and it's you), but feel sure there will be one soon enough. It looks like this particular web-to-print model will be a major topic at the upcoming Heidelberg open house that includes Red Tie and Tharstern. FlyerAlarm, by the way, is a Heidelberg customer so anyone interested in gaining insights into this space could do worse than to free up some space in their diary for Tamworth's swansong on 9-10 Feb.

Sorry print tale has lessons for all

2288289 — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:33:00 GMT

A chum recently had a disappointing print-related experience, and naturally I heard all about it. The sorry tale flagged up a couple of potential perils for those selling, and buying, printed products online.

She purchased a digitally-printed mural at something of a bargain price. Unfortunately this turned into a classic case of ‘you get what you pay for' as the mural used an image that was not an appropriately high resolution for the size required. The result being that unacceptably large pixels were clearly visible in the household environment it was due to be installed in. As my friend put it: "I was expecting the background to be blurred, but not the foreground which was quite sharp in the image on the internet but quite blurred on the mural. Also I was not expecting such large pixels."

Lesson one: if you are flogging print to the general public, make sure you are clear in your descriptions and explain how the physical print will differ from something viewed on a computer screen. In the case of something like a mural that is obviously for use in someone's home, make sure images are scaled up appropriately.

Some information on optimal viewing distances wouldn't go amiss, either. "It will look perfect if you live in a Tudor mansion with a long gallery, and are viewing it from the far end. If, however, you happen to live in the average Barratt Homes box, you might see what we in the print trade call pixellation. This is perfectly normal."

Upon trying to return this below par print purchase, another interesting thing happened to my friend. The seller said that would be OK, "subject to a 30% re-stocking and admin fee". Funnily enough this didn't quite marry with the no hassle return guarantee that appeared in the T&C on the website "simply return it immediately for a full refund or charge card credit". Ah, said Mr Mural Printer, "we've changed our terms recently and haven't put it up on our website yet." Oh dear, oh dear.

Lesson two: to avoid unseemly run-ins with Trading Standards or the small claims court, ensure your up-to-date terms and conditions are accurately reflected in all your trading environments.

The rise and rise of Vistaprint

2288289 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:43:00 GMT

How many printing companies handle 57,000 orders a day? How many could? Not many, I'd wager. In fact there might just be the one - Vistaprint.

A chance encounter with the Financial Times' Executive Appointments supplement caused me to think afresh about this business, because last week Vistaprint advertised for a new "vice president - European business unit finance".

A glance at its corporate factsheet reveals the stellar growth achieved by the company over the past five years. In its last financial year to the end of June 2009, and despite the downturn, sales grew 29% to $516m. The proportion of non-US sales has steadily increased, and was just over 50% of that. Hence no doubt the expansion of its European management team. Its European manufacturing hub is in Venlo, in the Netherlands.

Everything is dealt with via web-to-print, of course, backed up by clever manufacturing facilities and a host of patents. The amount of print purchased online must be huge now - Vistaprint talks of the small business marketing opportunity as a $25bn market worldwide. It also made me think about how much SME print business has been diverted in Vistaprint's direction that would previously have been the natural domain of Kall Kwik, Prontaprint and other similar high street operations. At a rough guess, I'd say the answer is "a lot".

Coming across that advert has made me realise that I've been remiss in not trying Vistaprint's services for myself, I shall be sure to do so when the opportunity next presents itself. I like to make a point of testing out online print offerings - be it Moo, Moonpig, M&S or Mailshots Online - as it's always a useful knowledge-gathering exercise. This in turn reminded me of some wise words from web-to-print expert Peter Lancaster in a PrintWeek piece last year, when he suggested that every printer should buy something from online providers such as Vistaprint - I would wholeheartedly second that advice, especially if your market overlaps with anything they produce and you're not yet offering a web-to-print service. That old "know thine enemy" philosophy really does ring true.

Future of print is fun and funky

2288289 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:34:00 GMT

Following up on the ongoing "future of print" debate (which at least has merit in generating lots of column inches...), I came across something yesterday that seemed to be the perfect example of harmonious pixel and print interaction.

Web designer John O'Nolan printed loads and loads of different Moo minicards for a client pitch, allowing him to share various website design options and ideas with his audience in a funky and tactile way.

To my mind the Moo service is a perfect example of a clever web-to-print service that makes it easy to produce a whole host of printed matter that would never previously have been printed. And rather like Moonpig's personalised greetings cards, people love Moo stuff when they receive it - I bought my best friend some minicards for her birthday and she was absolutely delighted with them, and it's easy to see how word-of-mouth sales can take off as a result.

The fact that in John O'Nolan's case it was a web designer who chose to use print in this way makes it extra sweet.

It's not often that the words fun, funky and print appear in the same sentence, but services like Moo make the future of print feel that way.

Another new business enabled by web-to-print

2288289 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:20:00 GMT

I don't know, you wait the best part of a decade for the personalised greetings card market to take off, then along come two new entrants in the space of a couple of months.

First the mighty Marks & Spencer decided to muscle in on Moonpig's market, now new entrant Whamoosh wants to get in on the act too.

Moonpig has of course done all the legwork and heavy lifting in this particular space, and is now reaping the rewards - it was interesting to learn from the firm's founder Nick Jenkins that despite spending on TV advertising and digital marketing, most of its new business is acquired through word-of-mouth, or rather card-in-hand, because recipients love the cards they receive so much that they then order for their friends and family, and so on. Meanwhile, Marks & Spencer has the advantage of being able to promote its new card service to gazillions of existing customers on the back of its massive online presence.

My initial reaction to news of the Whamoosh offering was that it would need to have something pretty special to make headway against two such formidable competitors. Its USP is the Facetec technology behind its "Face-it!" cards. Facebook users familiar with the "Yearbook Yourself" application will be familiar with this type of thing. I created a Face-it! Card this morning using my standard issue PrintWeek pic, and while it worked OK (there's quite a long wait while the image is uploaded and processed initially, but after that it's pretty quick), the facial morphing was perhaps a bit too good, in that you couldn't really tell it was me anymore. Having shown the resulting image to someone who should be able to recognise me at a distance of less than three feet, the response was "who's that?". I'll dig out a less bland pic later and try again. But given suitably characterful subject matter I can see that these cards will certainly appeal to young folk and what could be described as the whoopee cushion sector of the market.

It's interesting that Whamoosh is partnering with trade printer Wirralco for the print production side of things. Must find out what web-to-print setup they're using too. Also interesting will be how they promote this and establish their brand - I imagine the whole social networking side of things will play a big part, I see they're on Twitter but can't find them on Facebook just yet. I see that it's also possible to upload images directly from Facebook and Flickr, which is bound to have appeal.

Yet again, though, we see an example of printed matter being generated via a website, and this is a trend that the industry at large needs to keep on top of. The expectations of customers for all types of print services are going to change as a result.

Simple M&S card not-so-simple after all

2288289 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:20:00 GMT

Today I bring you a world first - a review of my experiences using the new M&S Personalised greetings card service.

I ordered two cards on Friday, one to be delivered to a Nottingham address, the other to Francis Towers in Brentford.

Verdict on the user interface: fairly friendly and straightforward, although I found I couldn't select a £ symbol when entering my personalised text. A $ yes, but not a £. So that was a bit odd, I wonder if it's connected to the fact that the service uses a software platform from Canadian firm PNI Digital Media.

The choice of font is also restricted to whatever the design team have considered to be an appropriate typeface for that particular card. It might be a nice idea to also include a faux handwriting font as an option on all of them.

As previously noted, you have to set up a new account within the separate Personalised website. It says "but you can still use the same email and password as on your existing M&S account", however the password for Personalised has to be at least seven characters, whereas my existing M&S one is only six. A small niggle, but a niggle nonetheless.

Thanks to the current postal problems it has taken a few days for the cards to arrive, even though they were printed on the day of order (Nottingham turned up on Tuesday, Brentford yesterday). That wasn't a surprise, what was surprising was that for each order two identical cards turned up. Hopefully someone has fixed that little glitch by now, otherwise it could prove expensive.

I was also intrigued to see an Exeter postmark on the cards (print supplier Tigerprint is in Bradford), along with an actual stamp as opposed to a frank.

Some complaints: I selected "Mr & Mrs" in the address I set up for my parents, but this detail was absent from the envelope that turned up so the card appeared to be addressed to my dad alone. That would have been annoying if it had been for a real occasion such as a wedding anniversary.

And I'm afraid that even my aged parents with their less than pin-sharp vision remarked that they were disappointed with the print quality. Upon closer inspection (using that old Scangraphic linen tester), it seems that the entire card has been turned into some sort of jpeg. So the text is not outlines and the line-art elements don't have a nice crisp edge. There's a scattering of stray toner pixels in the background areas that contributes to a displeasing overall sense of fuzziness.

I would have expected some of the more obvious glitches detailed above to have become apparent during the set up and testing phase of this service, particularly the "Mr & Mrs" thing. It just goes to show that even a relatively straightforward web-to-print setup can be anything but simple.

Marks out of ten for Marks': five.

Let's just say a few things require fixing before anyone tries to send Stuart Rose a personalised congratulations card.

Pigs in space

2288289 — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:24:00 GMT

What a stonking set of results from Moonpig, and what a great success story the firm is, especially when you consider how many of its early dotcom compatriots soon fell by the wayside.

Here's a headline that puts today's figures into perspective: "Moonpig sales up to £7,000 per day". That was the summer of 2002. The equivalent sum done on its 2008/09 turnover of £20.9m returns a figure of £57,260. Impressive stuff indeed, as is the fact that while growing sales so spectacularly - up 164% year-on-year - and producing a profit margin to die for (32%), it has also grown the profit per card printed.

Inspiring stuff from Nick Jenkins and his team. I'm intrigued to know whether it was the TV advertising campaign, high-profile internet advertising, or a combination plus perhaps something else altogether that has made this particular pig go stratospheric.

What next, I wonder? Could this little piggy be going to market?

Web-to-print worries for some

2288289 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:13:00 GMT

Web-to-print is easier said than done for some, as evidenced by a recent conversation with someone working at a high street print chain. Frustrated by a lack of action on this front from head office, they were investigating how they could implement such a system themselves.

Looking at the websites of Prontaprint, Kall Kwik, Printing.com, Minuteman and AlphaGraphics I can't see a facility to place immediate online orders for everyday print items unless you already have some sort of account with them. At Printing.com I need to download an order form, which came as something of a surprise as my perception was that I could order online through them.

Perhaps the focus for these businesses is on passing trade that's attracted by their shopfront displays or convenient location, rather than via the web. But it seems a bit odd that print chains that have been named "Superbrands", in the case of Prontaprint and Kall Kwik, are not leveraging those brands more in the online space.

For franchisees it must surely be a worry that customers can go online and order business cards and similarly straightforward printed matter from the likes of Vistaprint or Easyprinting via their web-to-print interfaces. Easyprinting is notable as the only printco I know of to advertise on London Underground.

In fact, a Google search this morning for "business card and letterhead printing" produces a result that doesn't include a single mention of those established franchises on the first page of results - not even Printing.com which I'd understood to be a big spender on Google Adwords.

Is there a Craig's List type of lesson to be learned here? New online players are entering a bread and butter print space with a slick, convenient and often very cheap offering. I'd be interested to know whether franchisees are concerned that they are losing business as a result.