Print Storefronts: 25 years in the making!

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new print solution, aiming to help printing companies advance online quickly, cost effectively and competitively. 

Cloud to Print is a web product in partnership with Digital agency; Making Websites Better, and the UK's leading web-to-print software provider, Vpress.

While our team have been working hard on this project for a couple of years now, the entire journey to this point itself took me 25 years. Thus, I wanted to share the story so far. 

My Grandfather worked in print from the end of World War II through to the 1970’s. My Father also worked in the print industry in the good old days of the 1980s, when printers coined the phrase ‘print your own money’ because of its lucrative appeal. 

I joined the industry in the 90s when I was booted out of school and quickly opened my eyes to the big wide world of work. I started out helping in my Father’s litho print firm at weekends and took it to the next level when I embarked on an apprenticeship in a high street print shop. Before moving onto a London-based printer where I was employed as a graphic designer, where I ultimately became head of the creative department in the studio. 

I then decided to branch out and subsequently form my own printing business in 2008, which I grew to over ￡1m turnover. We enjoyed great success, winning five national print awards in our four years of trading. During this time I was awarded the ‘People in Print Award’ for my contribution to the industry at the age of 28 years old.

Fast forward a few years later and I am now fortunate to be overseeing my latest venture, Making Websites Better. I have used all the experience I have gained over the years, from things that did not go quite to plan through to the enjoyable successes along the way of seeing what was wrong with the print industry to apply this to a solution to help the sector. 

I firmly believe that print has a future despite the many people forecasting that around half of the print companies in the UK could fail in the coming months which will put many skilled and hard working people out of work. Despite this there is a demand, there is a need for print today and will be for many years to come. 

Post-Covid the way that everyone buys any product or service will change forever, we will all become accustomed to a digital first mentality and people will look to the web and digital platforms to make purchases rather than visiting physical premises, even when buying B2B services like print. 

So quite simply, every single print company needs to have a website presence. It does not suit every print company to be e-commerce and sell online, I get that. But every printer needs a professional website that promotes their value.

Order quantities are smaller, expectations on timeframes now are more on-demand and prices are lowering. All resulting in lower margins as you have to do the same work quicker and cheaper. How can the average print company cope with this? 

Additionally if you margins are lowering nobody is doing you a favour with your running costs as your staff are not offering pay cuts, machines don't cost less, rent isn't cheaper and so on.

So why are printers trying to gain new business by lowering price?!

I believe that a good website should help a printer position themselves to sell their services based on the value that they add to the customer, not by discount pricing to the bottom. This takes confidence and that is something that we work with printers to gain online.

The current print sector to me is summed up by this example:

If you imagine a market with 10 lemonade stands. The first guy to set up prices his drinks at ￡10, then the 2nd guy undercuts this at ￡9 and so on, then the last guy to set up will have to give his drinks away. This is what printers THINK that they need to do in order to sell online, whereas customers just want a reason to choose you.

What's happening today is that the bold and cash rich "lemonade stand owners" are buying the smaller stands to take them off the market and absorb their customers. The bigger will get bigger and the SME printers will all fade into history if we are not careful. 

To survive, I think that printers need to niche where possible with sector and service and to portray their expertise and give customers other reasons to choose them beyond just price. 

If on your print website you just show pictures of your printing machines and have your accreditations listed at the bottom of your website you're never going to succeed online as what choice are you giving your customers? What reasons to choose you? Nothing, so the customer will revert to comparing you based on price!!

Do you phone a restaurant before you book to ask what ovens they have? 

No, you look at their website and social media to understand the experience. 

If you hire an accountant or solicitor do you care about their certificates? 

No, you care about their ability to solve the problems that you need them to solve.

……

I know this article is partially a rant about what's wrong with the print sector but I am trying to also help with the launch of our print storefront solutions too.  I deeply care about this sector and want to help the thousands of business currently suffering due to COVID, plus also more generally as they don't know where to turn to evolve their business.

Our Print Storefronts start from just over ￡3k (for existing Vpress customers) which is around quarter of the price of an average bespoke e-commerce website of this level. For non-Vpress customers it's a little more but you will also get their web-to-print software, training and support. 

We also have a marketing team at Making Websites Better who can help you to reach your ideal customers online. They are looking for you so isn't it about time to be found ONLINE, which is where your customers are waiting for you. 

For information about our new solution to help printers please visit: www.cloudtoprint.co.uk