Web-to-Print : A Web Technology That Holds A $100 Billion Business Opportunity!

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The global digital printing market is estimated to grow from $131.5 billion in 2013 to $187.5 billion in 2018 – a compound annual growth of 7.8%. As the technology is shifting many of the business process, traditional style of digital printing is going through a reformed version of execution. The explosive adoption of internet and technology has paved the faith of Web-To-Print and the buzz surrounding it is growing day by day.

The technology has a business opportunity on offer, worth $100 billion in the next five years and just about every printing business that’s not already offering this service to its customer wants to use this technology. Even online retailers are implementing this software to allow shoppers to personalize products they are shopping for. This technology is bolstered by a growing awareness of the internet and the fact that more people, businesses and their customers alike are willing to leverage its potential for improving their shopping experience.

Proportion_of_offset_and_digital_in_all_print_markets_2008-2018_by_value_and_volume

Why use Web-to-Print Solutions?

If one was to put it very simply, the reason web-to-print has become so popular is that it promises something that every business wants – improved profitability. But at the heart of this technology’s popularity is the fact that it has improved the printing process by dramatically and made it more even more accessible for the customers. It’s also taken some pressure off printing service providers and allowed them to focus on better revenue generation activities.

Even in developing countries like India, the technology is growing by leaps and bounds. This business model is considered as the one of the most in-demand services in future. Consequently, Indian start-ups, the likes of printbindaas.com have amalgamated e-commerce and the web-to-print model and investors are snooping around the opportunities.

Let’s take a closer look at reasons why more businesses are using web-to-print solutions:

The Printer’s Perspective

  • Simplifies Print Ordering

This technology has simplified the process of ordering prints and the whole business of proofing and designing a print order. The reigns of this process are solely in the hands of the customers, which gives them a highly personalized printing solution. Customers can choose from the many templates on offer to customize their product designs before giving the print order. The printer doesn’t come into the picture at all. This is good news for the printer as he can utilize this time to explore new lines of business and improve strategic business growth.

  • Increases Productivity

In the good old days, a printer and a client wasted endless amounts of time working out the design of the print order, proofing and doing everything else that was part and parcel of processing a print order. As can be imagined, this was a time consuming process and was never straightforward. There was a lot of friction between the client and the printer, mistakes were made and rectified, miscommunication was rife and this adversely affected the productivity of the printer. The emergence of web-to-print means that everything is done online. The only physical process conducted is the processing of the print order and its delivery. This has improved the productivity of business by a long way, and improved productivity means increased profits.

All in all, the use of web-to-print has improved the workflow, provided great online visibility to printers and simplified client-printer transactions.

The Customers Perspective

  • Convenience

No long meetings with printers are required to get the prints you need and have them delivered to your home or office. All you need to do is open the printer’s website and use the web-to-print software to create your own design, proof it and give the print order. You get access to your prints quickly and conveniently from the comforts of your home or office.

  • Get What you Want

You get the benefits of a personalized printing experience. Your design choices are no longer limited to what the printer has on offer, but you could create your own design for the print. Most online design tools are very easy to use and allow you to come up with some amazing designs that are just what the doctor ordered for your needs. You are in charge of the kind of print solutions you get. The fate of your print solutions is in your hands and not that of the printer. Most customers make the most of this opportunity.

These are just some of the many benefits that you the customer can experience from web-to-print technology, but in order to experience them, you need to understand how this technology works.

Understanding Web-to-Print Technology

The many diverse benefits that this technology brings to the table mean, that they are good enough to satisfy your printing needs. But it’s also important that you are able to make an informed decision in this regard. So, let’s try and understand this technology a little better and some of the things it brings to the table.

An Essential Software that Must be Navigated

When you’re using this technology, you’re actually using a piece of turnkey softwares/applications, developed by companies like Design ‘N’ Buy, that have been specifically built to facilitate an online printing job. What’s more, what you will see is the front end of the software and the software is managed and your order processed from its back end, which can be accessed by the printer.

You Should Be More Aware of Aspects like Font, Color and Quality 

If you’re using an online design tool to create your own print designs, you must understand that you’re not designing for the web, but for print, meaning a physical product. So, while making use of the various font choices offered by the tool, make sure that you keep this fact in mind. You need to make sure that the font, color and the images you choose will look as good on your product as they do when they’re staring at you, out of your screens.

What you need to focus your attention on is high quality prints and this is where the DPI (Dots per Inch) comes into the picture. A 300 DPI is ideally suited for all printing jobs, something that you need to keep in mind while using a web-to-print software.

There is a Real, Print Shop Behind All Such Software

Some people have this wrong belief that because they are designing their own print products, they are the be-all and end-all of the print process and there is just somebody at the end, giving an order for print and delivering them to your doorstep. Yes there is somebody at the other end and that is the printer. At the end of the day, it’s the reputation of the printer who you decide to work with that determines the quality of the print. The equation is very simple. If the printer who you choose to work with uses high quality printers, you get the benefit of high quality prints.

This is just a small overview of the web-to-print technology and some of its important aspects will help you use it better and to your advantage.

In The End..

Web-to-Print is here to stay and why not? It’s well on course to revolutionize the business of printing for both the printer and the user. As technology evolves, there will be perceptible improvements in this technology as well. This means that both the tangible and intangible returns on investment for the printer and the user will keep heading northwards for a long time to come.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Well, according to Global Industry Analysts, Inc. Web-to-Print market is reach to $869 Million by
    2017. As digitalization of web-savvy printing is relative to ease of implementation
    which helps to increase the printing business. Also we can track that for
    upcoming growth of Web-to-Print market preferring younger print customers who habitually
    for online shopping.  To know more about online printing business then
    you can refer: http://www.print-commerce.com/want-to-take-your-printing-business-online-the-answer-is-printcommerce/

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