Web to print software companies are taking printing services on internet and web with improved technologies and advancements. There are improvements in Print MIS, Personalization Software, 3D Printing and legacy continues in 2016.
While 2015 has really been year of mobile commerce, eCommerce and all things related to being online. 2016 will again be a year of print advancement and can be termed as the very right time for web to print. Web to print has seen increasing adoption among PSPs and end consumers and will continue to be in growth mode in 2016. However there are certain new trends that can be defining it slightly different from 2015.
There was a time in 2001 when only 3% print orders are placed online via print service providers website which rose to around 30% in 2014 and according to a projection it will be around 50% in 2017 and that’s why we termed 2016 as the very right year for web to print.
1. Compact Workflows – The compact workflows has been in talks from 2014 and hope to get some more run this New Year. These workflows have combined the complete process of online ordering (includes personalization also), print management (automated job sheet generation, lining up printing jobs), delivering (Receiving output and tracking orders) and even post sales customer query handling. Web to print service providers are working to provide all this to printers under one application and offer end to end solution.
2. Variable Data Printing – Variable data printing gains more space as now-a-days brands or companies want to give personalized attention to their customers. They want complete personalized material for their customers with names, geographies and other minor details.
3. Web to Print as Marketing Platform – With introduction of product personalization tools, social media, google analytics, maintaining CMS pages, somewhere web to print model will soon incorporate full-fledged marketing platforms within themselves.
With the help of design tools, email marketing, social media and other tools, marketing agencies can easily design inputs for their clients and help them in circulating them to target audience. It reduces the time and effort for organizations to invest time in marketing, moreover these designed and saved output can be sent for print anytime and anywhere.
When we talk about web to print offering marketing solutions, it’s worth mentioning that 70% of today’s web ads and direct mail are being printed and thus modern web to print solutions provide facilities for both designing of ads and printing too.
(Source- Printisbig.com)
4. Personalization – The inbuilt design studio for giving option of personalization to customers has just picked up very well with many print service providers. Much advancement have been made in the area to offer complete freedom and creativity to customers and that goes very well with today’s “Serve Yourself” scenario. This trend will continue with more improvements and advancements in 2016 also.
Personalization not only includes personalized emails or promotional materials, they also include printing of business cards. According to a study, 28 million business cards are printed daily and this number was in around 2014 which is growing with average business growth rate of 2.5% every year.
5. Simplified Approval Workflows – Web to print service providers are now offering integrated support for corporate customers to printers so that they can streamline approval workflows for corporate clients. Corporate work slightly different than retail or personal buyers as they have hierarchy where they need budget, artwork and deadlines approvals. 2016 can bring in this feature with more simplification for corporate customers and this trend can catch up.
Print industry is being valued at $640 billion and drives $3.8 trillion in related services and growing every year worldwide. With such huge business, this industry has been battling in past few years to maintain its profitability and relevancy due to competency and pricing pressures, the value added services will see significant growth and such services typically includes web to print, variable data printing, cross media marketing, fulfillment and wide format printing.