Why three separate products, not just single one as offered by many other web-to-print solution providers?
Good question indeed!
Let us help you in comparing our 3 niche products to find out which one is best fit for your business requirements.
While discussing and consulting with many of our clients, we realized that anything that can be printed can be divided into separate segments based on printing techniques used and cost of printing. Some products can be printed irrespective of the size of artwork as their design area is bound as per the product surface area. The pricing of printing for such products is based on printing technique used e.g. DTG, sublimation, offset, screen etc.
While for some products, design area is unlimited or otherwise limited by the capacity of printing surface of printing machinery. For example, hoardings, banners, yard signs etc. Wide format printing techniques and machinery is used to print such product. The pricing of printing for such products is generally based on the printing material used (regular, matte, glossy, vinyl etc.) and size (height x width).
However certain products are of a yet another different nature that involves pre-printed products where only a part of the product can further be customized and re-printed. For example ready greeting cards, photo albums, invitations, flyers, corporate marketing and advertising materials, business cards etc. Variable data printing techniques are used for printing such products and printing cost depends on amount of variable data printed per product.
Also, a customer ordering a t-shirt may be an amateur designer or just a school kid who does not know design best practices. He just needs an easy to use interface to play with and create an artwork that suits his personality. On the other hand a customer looking to order corporate banners and business cards may be a trained designer or creative expert and would like to have features like grids, margins, cut/bleed lines to prepare professional design. While a person ordering photo book or greeting card just needs a pre-defined template where he can upload his photos, decorate it with stickers and personalized messages.
It would have been unfair to develop one single design studio that can serve all such requirements and keeping the interface clean and useful. That is the reason; we segmented our main product offerings into 3 separate products to cover each one of these distinct requirements.
Also, by giving 3 separate options, you can choose the best fit solution for your business as well as keeping your investment within your budget. Why to pay for the features not useful for your business?
Given below is a feature comparison matrix to show the major differences in our 3 products so you can decide which one is the best fit for your business.
All-in-one Product Designer vs. Print Designer vs. Card Designer
| Product Designer | Print Designer | Card Designer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suitable for | Products where a user can visually see the product image in the design area and create their own personalized artwork for printing with help of texts, images and clipart | Canvas products where user can select the size (width x height) of the canvas and prepare the artwork that fits the canvas size | Pre-printed products that can be further personalized with photos, messages and other design artifacts |
| Best Fit Products | Apparels, T-shirts, Bags, Mugs, Caps, Fashion Accessories, Gift Articles, Promotional Items etc. | Business Cards, Labels, Banners, Stickers, Decals, Magnetics, Flyers, Sign Boards etc. | Greetings Cards, Invitations, Business Cards, Photo Albums, Photo Cards, Calendars, Scrap Books etc. |
| Product Configuration | All product variants have separate inventory, hence managed as configurable products in Magento | No inventory management, hence managed as simple products in Magento with custom options | No inventory management, hence managed as simple products in Magento with custom options |
| Design Area | Based on the visual product image bound by the design area configured for personalization | Based on available sizes as allowed and configured by store admin | Based on the product surface area designated for personalization |
| Maximum Customizable Sides | Maximum 4 | Maximum 2 | Unlimited |
| Design Ideas/Templates | Global templates available for use for all products within design tool | Each product have its own exclusive design templates e.g. yard signs have its own design templates while political sign its own | Each product has unique template design while end-users can personalize that with different choices of page layouts and background images |
| Print-ready Output File | High resolution 300 DPI transparent PNG images | 300 DPI printable and scalable vector PDF | High resolution 300 DPI transparent JPG images |
| Product Color Options |  |  |  |
| Add Border to Design |  |  |  |
| Background Color or Image Option |  |  |  |
| Duplicate Side |  |  |  |
| Add Text | Yes, user can add unlimited text items | Yes, user can add unlimited text items | No, user can just edit pre-defined text items in the product template |
| Add Clipart | Yes, user can add unlimited clipart | Yes, user can add unlimited clipart | Yes, user can add unlimited clipart |
| Upload Image | Yes, from PC, Picasa, Flickr, Facebook | Yes, from PC only | Yes, from PC, Picasa, Flickr, Facebook |
| Add Shapes |  |  |  |
| Page Layouts |  |  |  |
| Add Note |  |  |  |
| Add QR Code |  |  |  |
| My Designs |  |  |  |
| Product Masking |  |  | |
| Layer Panel |  |  | |
| Photo Effects |  |  | Adjust photo placement, rotate, zoom, photo adjust transparency, apply fancy border, change the color effects to gray and sepia |
| Text Effects | Change Font, Resize, Rotate, Change Color, Outline, Shadow | Change Font, Resize, Rotate, Change Color | Change Font, Resize, Rotate, Change Color, Change Background Color |
| Text Shapes | Curve, Arch, Bridge, Bulge, Roof, Wedge |  |  |
| Clipart Effects | Resize, Rotate, Change Color, Outline, Shadow | Resize, Rotate, Change Color | Resize, Rotate, Change Color, Outline, Transparency, Grey/Sepia Image Effects |
| Panel to show no. of colors used |  |  |  |
| Grid and Margins |  |  |  |
| Cut, Copy, Paste |  |  |  |
| Undo and Redo |  |  |  |
| Print Proof |  |  |  |
| Save Design |  |  |  |
| Share Design | Yes, via e-mail, facebook, twitter | Yes, via e-mail, facebook, twitter | Yes, via e-mail, facebook, twitter |
| Live Cart Display |  |  |  |
We believe that above comparison chart will help you in picking up the right solution for your business and product offerings. Yes, in case your products confirms to more than one solution above, consult this with our sales team and they can rope in our technical team to analyze your requirements and suggest a best fit for you.
