Trends to Look for in the Web-to-Print Industry in 2020

Over the past decade, the printing industry has witnessed huge growth. As per the statistics, the web to print market was valued at USD 867.3 billion with an estimated growth rate of 7.62% until 2025.

It is high time all Magento Web-to-Print store owners start catering ever-increasing customer demands. Adopting the latest trends in this web-to-print industry to survive and grow has become a must.

To stand out in the printing industry here is the list of trends any e-store owner can look forward to:

Trends Worth Welcoming in the Web-to-Print Industry

·       Automation

Any delay in a printing job can raise questions on the business owner’s competence in meeting deadlines and fulfilling customers’ demands. So, staying on top of customers’ demands has become all business owners’ major responsibility.

To cater to customers’ demands in a better way, the industry has come up with ‘Automation’ of almost every process. Fully automated strategies and programs are improving both owners’ and consumers’ experiences gradually.

For instance, now consumers don’t have to manually place an order. They can simply load and send photos via any channel.

All these automated programs or strategies reduce dependency on manual processes. They not only help you auto-create designs but also automate manufacturing and production processes.

·         3-D Printing Technology

3-D prototyping printing technology settled the entire printing industry by storm. The global market of 3-D printing is forecast to grow to nearly USD 50 billion by 2025. With more and more printers adopting this technology, it surpassed subtractive manufacturing in popularity.

3-D printing can not only be speedier but also more accessible. And a Magento printing extension or software design tool has boosted its potential further.

Healthcare, automotive, robotics, education, etc. all are tapping into the potential of 3-D print technology.

·         Variable Data Interface

A print e-commerce store can also accommodate on-the-spot changes in the requirements.

For example, your consumer sent a print request for invitation cards. However, a few minutes later, they realize that they’ve made a typo in the venue address.

In order to correct that, they just can simply update the file at their end. The Magento Web-to-Print software will recognize the update and make edits accordingly.

This is why the variable data interface can be useful. A requestor or consumer doesn’t have to go through multiple channels and operations. They can simply change their information in no time.

Hence, variable data interface saves both consumers’ and business owners’ time and adds to their convenience.

·         Personalization Options

A business constantly needs to maintain its brand image in today’s competitive market.
Personalization isn’t just about customizing design. It also includes customizing format, specs, and other details as per customers’ preferences.

These personalization options are easily accessible for customers these days. They just have to input their preferences and the W2P technology will recognize them. With a Magento printing extension, customers can even design their products.

·         Integration with a Shipment Partner

Carrying out an initial transaction online has now become possible with the W2P technology. It doesn’t make any difference to shipment of a product to its destination.

As a result, the importance of having a reliable shipping partner has increased.

The W2P software transmits the shipping request to ship designs to customers to a third-party just after the click of the ‘Order Now’ button.

Real-time connection between shipping partners and business owners is a fairly new concept. It can go far ahead in the coming years.

Live Tracking can also come in handy. This feature keeps a customer informed about the status of their orders through text messages.

·         Voice Control and Command

Today, the need for efficiency is on the rise in every industry and the W2P industry is no exception. Some products with voice integrations have recently come up in the market.
Such voice integrations reduce the time and effort that go in manually typing all print specifications. Customers can simply mention their print specifications through voice commands. This new-age technology is a giant step towards making print job orders more customer-friendly.

·         Online Printing Portals

Web-to-Print technology is a technology to thrive in the future too. The proof is that all small businesses and even big entrepreneurs are preferring this technology. On top, consumers are also welcoming this service.

Therefore, several online printing portals have flooded the market. Online store owners have given full-fledged customization freedom to customers by providing a web-to-print storefront to them.

By partnering with an online printing portal, you can give your consumers more convenience and ease of transaction. Exploring this new option in the coming future may bring in more new customers for a steady flow of business growth.

Original source: https://customerthink.com/trends-to-look-for-in-the-web-to-print-industry-in-2020/

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Printing Industry Trends to Embrace in 2020

Lately, Digital disruption across the globe has affected the printing industry largely. High-end technologies are posing greater challenges to the printing industry. Besides emerging new digital technologies, rising environmental concerns are also raising questions on the current print methods.

Therefore, it’s imperative for printing companies to overhaul their current printing practices. And make them fit enough to stand new challenges. While several major players have already acknowledged the elephant in the room, the others haven’t. 

Let’s see what all printing industry trends print companies should adopt this year.

• Internet of Things (IoT)
  
  
  The Internet of Things has brought a huge revolution in the industry. Nowadays, smart printers are in great demand among almost all printing service providers. They help save both paper and resources. Besides, they can alert you about possible breaches and predict paper usage too when combined with AI.
  
  
  This way, the printing environment becomes more efficient and reliable.
  
  
• Personalization
  
  
  The growing popularity of personalization has generated new opportunities for the print industry. Printing service providers can help create personalized marketing copies for and personalized products.
  
  
  Demographic targeting, retargeting, location-wise targeting, life-event targeting are some ways printers can customize marketing copies for companies. Similarly, they can print personalized products for different e-store owners letting customers use Product designer tool.
  
  
  So, personalization of prints is a trend to go a long way towards revamping the printing industry in the years ahead.
  
  
• Security in Printing
  
  
  Securing printing work has become the need of the hour. Print companies must ensure that their printing services are cyber-secure. Big print companies have to deliver large print orders to their customers. 
  
  
  Thus, securing their customers’ sensitive data is safe from leak or tampering is of utmost importance. They can install security software and implement other major security measures to ensure printing security. As this is a way they can gain their customers’ trust and upkeep their rapport. 
  
  
• Artificial Intelligence
  
  
  Artificial Intelligence is an emerging wave of change you can’t ignore in any industry. Print management software using smart algorithms to:
  
  
   1. Recommend the right paper layouts and minimize paper wastage.
   2. Indicate the time for ink replacement or machine replacement using printing sensors.
   3. Reroute print jobs automatically to another printer if a printer goes down.
   4. Reduce the downtime of a printer machine.
  
  
  Besides saving resources, AI can help prevent unauthenticated printing jobs. Owners can secure printing jobs by using the ‘print authorization’ feature. This feature lets a company owner code every employee’s badge for particular print jobs as per their individual profile. Thus, everyone cannot carry out every print job. 
  
  
  For instance, while an HR can print a passport but a developer can’t. This feature not only secures print jobs but also helps assess the amount of paper and ink usage per department.
  
  
• On the Go Printing
  
  
  On the Go printing or cloud printing is becoming highly popular these days. Cloud printing eradicates the need for on-premise servers and employees. No matter where you are, you can carry a print job easily. 
  
  
  It also eradicates the need for a software driver to connect a device to a printer. Which means you can carry out driver-less printing with it. 
  
  
  Linux, Lexmark and other major print service providers have already started offering Cloud Managed Printing Services. However, small companies are yet to provide them for customers. 
  
  
• Print on Demand
  
  
  Print on Demand is one of the most popular printing industry trends today. In this method, only ordered copies of a document, book or any item are printed. This leaves no scope for wastage unlike in stock prints. Further, business owners do not have to worry about the ‘Out of Stock’ issue and can always take orders and deliver them. 
  
  
  A printing business owner can also earn huge profits and a rise in popularity as a printing service provider. So, adopting this new emerging trend will prove fruitful to the printing industry. Moreover, this type of service can become a new source of income for print companies.
  
  
• Sustainability
  
  
  Sustainable practices are very crucial in today’s world. People are now getting more and more concerned about the environment. And are switching to more environment-friendly practices.  
  
  
  Hence, printing service providers must convince their customers that their printing services and products are eco-friendly. It is up to an individual company owner to decide what they can do to make their print services environment-friendly. 
  
  
  Of course, people aren’t going to dictate the way one makes their printing services eco-friendly. But are definitely going to prefer an eco-friendly print service over a non-sustainable one. 
  
  
  Therefore, it is high time all print service providers switch to sustainable printing practices. And consider them a necessity rather than a luxury as earlier. Only then will they be able to retain their loyal customers for longer.
  
  
  Low carbon printing by HP is one such initiative. Looking up to HP and other major players is a must for all print companies to reconsider making printing practices sustainable. 
  
  
• 3-D Printing
  
  
  3-D printing technology is not that new. It’s been there for several years. However, its full-fledged adoption by the printing industry still remains. 3-D printing is necessary as it can serve a plethora of industries like automotive, firearms, aerospace, furniture, arts, and more.
  
  
  This implies that if all printing companies, whether big or small, embrace this trend whole-heartedly, they can benefit a lot. They can even cater to more custom orders from different industries and earn huge income. 

Conclusion

The change in the printing industry is in the air. A number of printing industry trends are knocking on the door. If a print service provider wants to survive and flourish, they must readily adopt these trends. Or else, they can get knocked out of the competition sooner or later.

Original Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/printing-industry-trends-embrace-2020-pratik-shah/

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How to Start a Print-On-Demand Business

Big companies produce tons of stock and store them forever. However, such is not the case with small company owners and new startups as they can’t risk wastage of product stocks due to low sales.

Is there any solution to it?

Yes, Print-on-Demand is the one.

One more luxury big companies enjoy is that they can innovate new designs and imprint them on their products. Unfortunately, this luxury is again out of the reach of small business owners. They can’t risk investing big sums into printing new designs and facing rejections of those designs by customers. Again, is there a solution to it? Yes, Web-to-Print Software is the one.

If you see, these two solutions combinedly can help new businesses grow sales exponentially with minimal risk.

What is Print-on-Demand and How It Works?

‘Print-on-Demand’ method is a printing technology or business method to sell custom products. However, unlike in the traditional method, the business owner does not need to stock custom products and wait for customers to buy them. Rather, they can easily tie-up with a manufacturer or distributor to print products as per the orders.

After receiving the request, it becomes the responsibility of that manufacturer or distributor to take care of everything from printing, shipping, and handling product returns.

All you need is to market your products through the right channels.

Who All Can Benefit from Print-on-Demand Method?

Entrepreneur

A business-minded person can always make the best use of this method to analyze the response of their new launches. It is especially useful for companies that deal in print products and items.

Graphic Designers/Illustrators

They are already well-equipped with knowledge of the latest design trends in the market. All they need to do is sell those designs to their audience and followers through various sites.

Artists

Their artistic approach to different things and a huge fanbase can help artists notch up their sales.

Writers

Writers can get their quotes, excerpts from their popular books, novels, or poems printed on different products. Such custom products are in high demand nowadays and can bring in huge returns on investments for writers.

Gift Shop Owners

Offline gift shop owners can cash in on this business method. All they need is to launch an online gift store with web-to-print software. Letting customers design and order their custom designs can help them stay on top of customers’ satisfaction always. For that, they can choose a suitable manufacturer or distributor who can fulfill order requirements.

Steps to Start the Print-on-Demand Business

Research Designs

If you are an artist, this step is not that important for you. Because you are already well-acquainted with what designs are trending. However, if you are an entrepreneur, you need to collaborate with good designers and artists to get the hang of current trends.

It is better to test a sample of each design for your product before bringing out the other. This way, you, as an entrepreneur will get the hang of what designs people like more.

Accordingly, you can plan further designs and release them.

Research Products

Besides researching designs, researching products is also essential. A few products popular these days to print your designs on are notebooks, mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, pillows, etc.

However, you still need to research and find out what product(s) has the highest profit-giving potential.

Use Google trends to understand customers’ behavioral patterns. Also ask your friends to form a general opinion of which custom item they like to buy the most.

Conducting a small survey can also help you decide on the product(s) to customize for your business.

Tie Up with a Manufacturer/Distributor/Printer

Now that you already have your product and design ready, find a competent manufacturer/distributor to print your custom orders. Always try to build a long-lasting bond with your manufacturing or distributing partner to succeed.

Prepare a Catalogue of Items to Sell

This step is crucial as it involves clicking photos of all products to go for sale. You can either click photos of your products yourself using a decent camera. If you aren’t sure of your photography skills, try to find a friend good at photography to do it for you.

The last resort is to hire a professional photographer to click snaps for your product catalogue.

Pro Tip: It is recommendable to not invest much and use a high-quality digital camera to click photos yourself. Or else, you’ll have to shell out a significant sum of money in hiring a photographer.

Register on Different Sites

The next step is to create a seller account on different sites like AliExpress, eBay, Amazon, etc. These sites give more visibility to your products and people start acknowledging your products more. So, conduct proper research to find out the best possible site for your product.

Upload Your Catalogue

After registering as a seller, upload your products on the site. Also, some keyword research is foremost to get customers to notice your products. Adding USPs of your products would also be a good idea.

Start Marketing on Social Media

Social media marketing is a great marketing tool today. Set up your Facebook account and Instagram account. Remember that these accounts must be business accounts and not personal accounts with all creator tools. Setting up a respective ads account for each social media channel is also recommendable.

See to it that your logo goes with the product(s) you deal in.

Fulfill Your Orders Timely

In the beginning while testing your samples, you can try fulfilling orders by partnering with a delivery service. But as the orders start inpouring in large numbers, it is better to switch to print-on-demand sites. Various sites like Zazzle, Printify, Printful, etc. take care of everything from taking orders, shipping them and handling their returns.

Launch Your Own E-Store

Once you get along with suppliers, a big audience, and profits from orders; you can launch your own e-store. The challenges still don’t end.

The biggest challenge is competing with the leading brands in this industry like Hallmark, Archies, etc. As they already have a huge audience, they can produce products in large stocks. Despite knowing your products have succeeded, you can’t go for inventory management straight away.

So, it is better to integrate web-to-print software with your e-store. This software will let your customers customize your products themselves by using creator tools. This will save you from risks of loss wastage in bulk production of custom products. As customers will create only what they intend to buy.

Once you get enough popularity, you may venture into producing products with custom designs in huge stocks.

In a Nutshell

Starting a new business is never a cakewalk. You have to surmount so many hurdles to eventually ace the business. The same goes with this print-on-demand business. Right from producing and testing custom designs to launching your own e-store with web-to-print software, every step poses new challenges.

Nevertheless, stay calm and be patient. Take every step judiciously throughout your journey. Success will eventually knock on your door.

Original Source: https://whattheythink.com/news/99825-how-start-print-demand-business/

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A Guide on Starting an Online T-Shirt Printing Business in 2020

An aspiring designer is always keen to grab the opportunity to start any business associated with the clothing industry. So, even if they get the idea of printing t-shirts, they think they’ll be able to manage everything efficiently.

But when they ‘actually’ start working on it, they face a number of obstacles and get stuck.

Despite these obstacles being small, they can show up anytime in the course of the entire process from designing to printing. And when you are a newbie with little knowledge of t-shirt print business particulars, obstacles are inevitable.

Though every designer works in their own way and every print shop has its own set of rules, there are several steps that may help you successfully kickstart a t-shirt printing business.

Here are the steps:

• Create a Business Plan
• Choose an appropriate ecommerce platform
• Integrate a t-shirt design software
• Choose a suitable printing method
• Choose the right t-shirt supplier/vendor
• Set up the printing infrastructure
• Set up logistics infrastructure
• Launch and market your store

1. Think of a T-Shirt Business Plan

A robust business plan is the first and foremost step towards success in any business. Talking of the t-shirt printing industry, there is a wide range of audience on the basis of choice of quality, design and style.

After deciding what to sell, a company needs to decide whether to open their online store or partner with a large online retail company like Amazon, Etsy, etc.

Below are the steps you can follow.

a. Identify the Market Niche

Segmentation of customers can be on the basis of either customers’ needs or age.

To find out the market niche, ensure to ask yourself the following questions.

• Will you sell printed t-shirts to infants or teens and grown-ups?
• Will you offer unlimited flexibility of customization or a fixed range of designs to pick from?
• Will you target a niche within various age groups? For example, printed comic character t-shirt for teens or printed sport t-shirts for adults?
• Will you align the design and quality with current market trends?

There are several more ways to identify a niche.

A basic step is keyword research. Google Keyword Planner can help you with that. Just put some keywords related to your intended niche and targeted country, and note which phrases and words appear as suggestions. Narrow down the suggestions further by monthly search volume, competition level or suggested bids.

Go for those keywords with a minimum search volume of 1k per month. As there would probably be no room for any keyword less than this.

With competition, you get ideas about your competitors and with suggested bids, you can get the idea of a high level of commercial intent. After industry and market research, write down your plan.

While creating a custom printed t-shirt, ponder over a few points like:

• Mission of your company – like offering high quality printed t-shirts at nominal prices.
• Will you create the basic templates and design or purchase pre-built designs?
• What do you expect from yourself, management and staff members?
• Knowledge of source of raw materials. Whether you will fix a vendor or buy plain t-shirts from a particular brand?
• Create marketing ideas on the basis of marketing analysis using events, social media, fairs or conventions, etc.
• Analyze the competition to work out the strategy to make your brand stand out.
• Gather corroborative documents like sample designs, vendor agreements, and statistical analysis of t-shirt printing business.
• Obtain a license as per your location and type of business.

b. Consider Financial Aspects

Before establishing a business, having an idea of the overall cost is important.

Being an entrepreneur thinking for the long run, your financial strategy should include:

• Projected expenses and assumptions of fixed and variable costs
• Costs of investment
• Revenue goals and expenses
• Break-even analysis
• Business ratios encompassing turnover, accounts payable, etc.
• Monthly profit or loss figures
• Annual gross margin
• The main expenses you should add are printing, bagging, tagging, labeling, packing,
• shipping, taxing, etc.

Obtaining printing quotes from various t-shirt printing firms to compare prices can help.

They can help decide on the best deal to offer without compromising quality. And these aspects combinedly will help decide prices of your t-shirts.

One more thing you need to evaluate is how far you can go if things don’t go as planned.

c. Strictly Avoid These Mistakes

For a robust business plan, undergoing each step of the planning process is indispensable. Small entrepreneurs or startups think at times that there is no need for a business plan. But that doesn’t work.

Here are the few mistakes that you must not make.

• Failing to include market research and profit or loss projection
• Not branding your business enough
• Not deciding on the method of accepting and fulfilling orders beforehand
• Launching an online store without a web-to-print and Online T-shirt Design Tool.
• Not gathering knowledge about working and maintenance of a web-to-print software.
• Failing to check the quality of final output beforehand
• Failing to assess the possible run-time challenges that your business might face

2. Choose the Right Ecommerce Solution for Your Store

The second step is deciding on the ecommerce platform for your store. Hosted platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce have a low startup cost and are ideal for low-budget startups. But they don’t let you choose an individual choice of your design and cannot add customized elements. On the contrary, with self-hosted platforms, you can choose your own design, make custom edits, add products and set prices at your convenience. The only drawback is that they aren’t ideal for low-budget startups and one can choose them only if they have higher (capital reserve/spending ability).

3. Integrate an Online Product Designer Tool

Investing in an advanced online product design tool is highly recommended. To start with, you can just integrate a t shirt maker software to fulfill basic customers’ requirements. This way, you can help customers design t-shirts that stand out. Once your business takes off, you can add new functionalities to your web-to-print store and enhance it further. Similarly, you can even expand features of your t shirt printing software to help people avail of ready-made quotes, clipart, texts, designs, and more.

4. Select the T-Shirt Printing Method

Post deciding designs, decide on the method of t-shirt printing.

There are 3 common ways of printing t-shirts – Screen Printing, Heat Transfer Printing, DTG Printing. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages.

While screen printing and heat transfer printing are more suitable for bulk printing, DTG printing is not. In the same way, there are a number of differences between the three. So, research well and match those features with your objective. Go for a method only after ensuring it is a perfect fit.

5. Choose the Right T-Shirt Supplier/Vendor

Choosing the right t-shirt supplier is also crucial. Look for a manufacturer who can provide you with good quality blank t-shirts for printing at nominal prices.

Make sure that your relationship with your vendor is good throughout as every single imperfect t-shirt will directly hamper your business.

Keep in mind the other points like:

The design should fit in the center of the t-shirt.

The type of ink you choose out of high intensity ink, gel ink and foil ink based on your fabric type and customers’ requirements

6. Set Up the Printing Infrastructure

Set up a printing infrastructure where printing can take place without any glitches.

Printing studio with well-maintained printers accompanied by a coating and a finishing unit is recommendable. Also, ensure to have printers that can print on a variety of fabrics as customers can for customized caps, bags, jerseys, etc.

The following are the steps involved in the printing process.

Proper choice of color schemes

Saving a copy for yourself and for print

Printing the t-shirts

7. Set up Logistics Infrastructure

Once a customer places an order, it is a must to deliver it on time. Ensuring a smooth delivery involves three steps.

Take care of your orders independently with your team support.

Sell products through a drop-shipper who can take care of your orders

Tie up with a logistics company who can take care of warehouse and order fulfillments.

8. Launch and Market Your Store

All set? Here comes the final step – store launch. Invite your customers to put their creativity to use and draw designs with a t-shirt maker software you offer. Make sure to keep the designer tool user-friendly and interactive to reduce cart abandonment rates.

If you are keen to start an online t-shirt printing store, you need not be tech-savvy or a highly skilled programmer. All you need is the love for art and knowledge and sense of the latest fashion trends.

So now that you have successfully launched the store, next comes its marketing.

Start spreading information about your upcoming business through flyers, pamphlets, and business cards. Approach nearby schools, organizations, and businesses in person as word-of-mouth promotion is one of the best promotional methods.

Be active on social media, click snaps of products, post them on Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Interact with people and use the tactic of giveaway contests for your fans.

If your budget allows, you can further use paid marketing, sponsor events, and go for other marketing tactics for maximum outreach.

Conduct timely online polls and keep posting to keep people engaged.

Final Takeaway

T-shirt printing business is indeed a great idea for fashion lovers. However, only if you come up with a strong business plan and proper steps right from choosing the right ecommerce platform, t-shirt design tool for website, to marketing your store; your business can ‘actually’ succeed.

Original Source: https://customerthink.com/a-guide-on-starting-an-online-t-shirt-printing-business-in-2020/

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