Tips for Understanding the Online Printing Marketplace

The online printing trend has accelerated in recent years due to the primary consideration of money – client have found that they can roughly half their printing costs by going to an Internet-based source to get the job done. The cheap pricing with high quality is accomplished using regularly scheduled gang runs combining your job with similar jobs using the same paper stock, finishes and quantity. Once you understand that the marketplace has been made possible largely by the reduced costs it offers at little or no expense to quality, it’s easier to figure out its role in getting your own printing assignments completed.

Another specific way to get a handle on how a particular company will satisfy the needs of your project is to follow up with them over the phone, or where possible in person. This will firstly permit you to see the “men behind the curtain”and get a sense of how professional they really are, as opposed to their flashy website promises. This allows you to also ask more technical specific questions not covered by the FAQ, for example, whether they can offer you free upgrades and services like UV coating or aqueous coating, as well as low pricing for full color printing. Upgrades such as 14pt card stock to 16pt card stock or $10 more for color on the back are helpful in evaluating whether you are getting value for your money.

You may have specific interests in selecting company that meets miscellaneous criteria before you work with them – e.g., are you environmentally conscious, and want the company to be as well? Does the printer have an option to use vegetable inks, non-solvent-based coatings and cleaners, etc., or other screening methods of doing business? You should understand that the online printing business is huge and does encompass companies of this type, however, you have to diligently search for firms that these specialty criteria.

One thing that is especially helpful to know about the online printing industry are it’s turnaround times for performance and delivery of your product. Three business days is the usual length of time for receiving products from competent printers, whether you end up picking up, or else have it delivered directly to you. There should also be almost no turnaround times for a properly manned web-based company in helping design a job if you already have given them an idea of what layout you want. The better companies will have graphic designers ready to go in creating a refined version of the basic concept you describe to them.

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