E-commerce is changing the way we do business. Every industry is going the E-com way by offering their products and services offline as well as online. It’s a requirement of digital world and every consumer’s expectation.
As discussed in other articles print industry works differently as it’s not like selling a standard product, but allowing users to customise their own print products before ordering. Thanks to web-to-print technology, now printing companies too can offer e-commerce option for printing.
Though it’s important to adopt new technology for offering to your existing customer, it’s also important to understand if this technology helps generate new orders from other parts of country or even other parts of the world. Why would consumers send order to printing company located outside their local area and bear courier cost and wait for products to be delivered instead of walking into local printing shop and getting it printed instantly?
It’s a very valid question, and yes, it’s always a convenience to first approach a local printing company to get it done quickly and save cost. However, there are lots of other points to be considered before concluding that printing is to be done locally and hence no e-commerce is required.
Especially after the invention of digital printing machines, printing quality varies as different machines work on different print technology. You have high-end machines producing high quality print output and also low price digital printing machine producing quality good enough to serve your urgent printing need. The size of your country, area wise as well as population wise is another factor to be considered. The usage of Internet and ease of payment online are other important factors.
When you have these basic facts and figures, you will be able to jot down reasons for why someone outside of your local area would like to come to you online and send you their printing order, knowing the fact that there will be additional courier charges.
As an example, assume you are in a vast country, multiple states, with good Internet penetration and easy facility of online payment. A well-aware consumer, located in a small industrial town looking for a quality print is facing a problem as the printing companies located in his area are not providing services on the particular printing machine which he wants for getting his job printed (especially in case of digital printing). Consumer is ready to pay for good quality of printing but his local supplier is either not capable of providing the quality or he is further outsourcing and taking a lot of time.
You might be in possession of the high-end printing machine which is in scarce supply in other parts of your country; a very good reason for you to generate new orders from other parts of the country if promoted well.
When you are well-connected through the web, with a logistic partner capable of multi-location delivery, corporate companies will get attracted towards your services, especially those having multiple branches say banks, transport companies, retail franchise network and so on.
Resellers from small towns or say advertising agencies who cater to quality-conscious clients also face problems as they too outsource job to nearby cities having printing machines that they are looking for. If you are on web, they can place an order online without leaving their desk; one more reason for them to come to you.
To conclude, online printing stores powered by web-to-print technology not only help you cater to your existing retail as well as corporate clients but also open up multiple opportunities based on parameters discussed above.