The Compelling Benefits and Drawbacks of Web to Print Solution

Today’s world is more competitive than ever, and customers expect only the best. The only solution to move ahead is to provide what exactly the customers want and web-to-print is one such solution.

The customer’s satisfaction increases with detailed information about their order that can be perceived quickly like tracking orders and getting automatic responses. The best way to make ordering more convenient for customers is to provide an online catalog, ready templates, short-run job ordering, competitive and instant pricing, and fast delivery. Web-to-print can handle it easily. Is your business ready to meet these requirements and satisfy modern customers?

As every coin has two sides, so does the utility of web-to-print. With the significant advantages, there are some challenges that can’t be ignored. Stick to the article till the end to know the challenges and solutions that can be done to overcome those faults.

The only goal is to enhance customer satisfaction and experience

The main key to customer satisfaction is to reduce delays. Many printers have a series of disconnected storefronts, print workflow, and shipment. This results in a delay in many manual processing tasks which in turn results in miscommunication and late orders.

Looking at an older version of order processing: 

• First, the creative department sends emails for order approval to the sales team which creates a job request manually.

• Then the production team makes the product ready and sends it to the delivery team.

• Then the delivery team creates an invoice regarding shipment details and dispatches it for delivery.

• Once the order is delivered, they have to mention ‘completed’ manually.

This is a tedious process and prone to errors. This results in low-profit margins and delays which decreases customer satisfaction. But modern customers have no exact ordering time; they do it when they wish to. What if there was a better way to control and manage all these steps in your printing business and elevate efficiency? 

This is where web-to-print serves the purpose. The web to print solution can automate manual processes like job-ticketing, billing, estimating, and designing. This allows customers to order anytime and provides greater feedback like emails for job-shipping and tracking orders. According to the study on “Web-to-print: The promise, the potential, and the reality”, 58% of members reported an increment in sales and 55% reported increased profitability.

The time reduced in designing, estimating, job-ticketing, prepress, and billing can be significant. With better coordination in marketing, sales, creative, production, delivery, and account team, the in-house costs are reduced. 

With the template-based feature of web-to-print, the customers can easily fill in their information in the templates provided for the standardized products such as business cards. Once they are done with it, it is displayed as PDF proof to be approved. The more advanced web to print solutions messages back to customers regarding file preparation mistakes. 

Some of the best web to print services provides the facility of creating and sending PDF files. Using this facility the created PDF files are of better quality in terms of fonts, colors, and graphics. The web to print provides greater compliance of brand consistency for the parent organization. Automatically billing customers through the company’s billing system is one such example of it. 

With better coordination in the team and decreased time delay, it saves 1 to 2 hours a day per staff member. How much worth do you consider it saving this much time and cost for your business?

The Challenges of the web to print solution

According to NAPL Workflow Investment Survey, more than 140 companies consider their investment in the web to print store worthwhile, whereas 40 companies consider it unworthy. When more than half of the feedback is positive, how is it not working for others? The answer lies in its maintenance, usage, and implementation. Still, 20% of customers fail to implement it properly. 

The major drawback is its cost requirements. For small printing businesses, it is not a good investment as the profit margins are not worth the overall operation costs. Unless you have a good business volume and are ready to make a good financial investment with a steep learning curve, web to print is not something you should instantly jump into.  

The other challenge will be to take some extra time and maintain the website. The first three months go away in getting acquainted with the settings. Remember that your subscription starts after 15 days and you will have to pay every month to balance it. You will have to keep a check on the website for the queries and orders and reply when needed. If you are unable for the same, you will have to hire a tech-savvy.

Website is not something physical that people will get a sight of. There will be a need for a digital marketer to outshine your website among others and targeted audience through SEO and social media ads. 

According to the NAPL study: ‘Web-to-print: The Promise, the Potential and the Reality’, only 5% of customers were using it, 22% faced implementation issues, and 51% were using only limited features. This can happen due to the above-mentioned challenges. But there is always scope to learn and then implement.

Summary at a glance:

These pointers will give you a clear picture of what you can expect from the web to print solution and make a decision on its basis.

Advantages and benefits of Web to Print Software

• Reduction of in-house costs and delays.

• Quick transactions due to the availability of templates.

• Faster processing of orders.

• Expansion of business as printers can take orders from anywhere.

• Enhanced user interface with designer tools and PDF files.

Drawbacks of Web to Print 

• Expensive

• Difficult cost estimation in case of complex products.

• Website maintenance required.

• Digital marketing needed to cope with high competition.

Verdict:

The best thing about drawbacks is that they can be eliminated with proper management and strategies. The number of advantages of the web to print over disadvantages cannot be ignored as the profit margins it increases are phenomenal. The only strategy to overcome those challenges is to clear the customer’s complaints and use easy implementation techniques. 

As per the report of the production value of printing machinery in India, the production value was around 124 billion in the fiscal year 2019. This is positive news for those thinking to invest in the web to print. The reduced time delay between various teams of the company is undeniable. Now the customers can order anytime and track orders instead of simply waiting. If your major goal is customer satisfaction, you may definitely proceed with the web to print solutions.