According to Lucas Eyre, Australasia sales development manager at MyPrintCloud, most print and design companies have attempted and failed to build an e-commerce presence with design capabilities due to four main reasons. This includes the high cost of capital investment needed, the lack of in house technical skills required, technology limitations, and the complexity of hosting and integrating a web to print platform with an existing MIS or estimating solution.
Eyre says, “MyPrintCloud set out to be the Shopify for the print industry, that is to bring a low cost e-commerce platform to small and large print companies that want to sell print online and process those orders without having to rekey that information into a third party print MIS solution”.
“After many years developing print MIS solutions and web-to-print solutions, MyPrintCloud realised with the emergence of the cloud, along with end user expectations of services, that a home grown solution which was one integrated product was needed. So with this knowledge they quickly set out to develop a cloud based platform to allow printers and graphic arts professionals to build their own branded B2C and B2B web stores. This quickly extended to integrate a powerful print MIS into the ordering module, and grew to include social media management and advanced CRM integration for marketing campaigns. Creating web stores was split into two store types; public vista-like stores (for new, anonymous visitors) and private stores, branded stores with specific templates and products with tighter editing controls for end users, managing editing privileges and brand controls like fonts and spot colours.
“By integrating all the core ingredients to sell online and to process orders on the shop floor and ultimately delivering print to the customer, MyPrintCloud feels that now even the smallest of print operations can compete with the biggest print management companies.”
MyPrintCloud is a global provider of print MIS and web-to-print technology. The company feels its latest release is going to change the way the graphic arts market adopts management and workflow technology. It says as proof it is providing its print MIS platform for free. Upgrade options include the ability to subscribe to a monthly subscription to create retail (B2C) and corporate (B2B) web stores.
As part of the print MIS solution, MyPrintCloud incorporates an online HTML5 designer tool with the end user in mind that it says is easy to use, while maintaining features found in popular design applications.
Since all of MyPrintCloud’s technology is proprietary, and not a collection of third party partners, the platform is 100 per cent integrated between web store, the online designer and the print MIS. This allows for live feeds into the web stores for items like stock and available inventory, with orders flowing into the production process and onto integrated accounting packages like Myob and Xero.
MyPrintCloud has been making a dent in the local market with more than 80 printers a month registering for their own instant print MIS platform for free, hosted on the Australian Amazon cloud network. Customers are instantly deployed when they register at myprintcloud.com.
Comprehensive free print MIS and CRM
The inbuilt print MIS within MyPrintCloud includes all aspects a printer or print manager would require. With an inbuilt CRM, Estimating, Order Processing, Production Job Boards, Inventory Management, Shipping and Dispatch Modules, as well as calculations for digital, wide format and offset presses, guillotines, pre and post centre calculations. All orders, either online or traditional direct orders are seen in one place and processed to production in one place.
MyPrintCloud has taken print MIS one step further with integration into third party CRM provider Agile CRM, allowing clients to transform their sales cycle with marketing automation, appointment scheduling, social media integration and more CRM related tasks.
CEO Omar Farooq says, “MyPrintCloud intends to improve the efficiencies of all shapes and sizes of print companies by offering the MIS component of MyPrintCloud for free while encouraging customers to grow their business by subscribing to web to print stores.
“MyPrintCloud understands the essence of print commerce. With its intelligent features, it allows authorised users to buy print online in a self-service manner, this applies to both retail stores and corporate stores.”
He says, “Self-service, transparency and online engagement is what MyPrintCloud web stores are all about. Each store is a separate website with a distinctive URL. It is a complete online print shop filled with products divided into various categories for easy access. Users from all over the globe can order print products ranging from business cards to multi-page brochures, posters and other marketing collaterals without caring about geographical boundaries. Each web store is tailored to the need of individual customers.”
The web stores are flexible with options to apply strong branding and design policies to the stores and the artwork available on them. Strict controls can be exercised and checks can be applied across various user levels. Limited or complete access can be granted according to user roles to ensure a smooth and transparent ordering process.
VDP and user logon information can be used to populate templates with text and imagery without any input from the client, and checkout options can be defined on a user by user basis, integrated with many Australian payment gateways like PayPal, St George, NAB, Westpac, ANZ and others.
Custom retail B2C print stores
MyPrintCloud provides mobile friendly retail stores with thousands of online stock layouts, a collection of mobile friendly responsive themes and full access to edit and add to the library of pre-existing products. More advanced users have access to design elements like the sites CSS and can add to web stores with HTML widgets for different page features. Farooq says, “MyPrintCloud has spent countless hours refining and improving the purchasing journey for end users, increasing the flexibility given to printers to allow the up selling of additional services and other products like finished goods and shelf items.
Custom corporate B2B print stores
MyPrintCloud already has 300 corporate print stores deployed already within Australia and New Zealand. With some sites having more than 1200 users it has been proven as an essential tool for franchises, real estates, schools and universities as well as corporates with complex approval processes. Customer feedback has allowed for many improvements to how private stores function and almost every requirement for the online repurposing of previously professionally designed artwork.
Integrated HTML5 online designer
MyPrintCloud’s online designer gives complete control over design principles. For example, you can control text height, character spacing, text justification, preserve CMYK and spot colours, inline styling for multiple text colours and fonts. Using variable data elements you can use rules to control the collapsing of text elements when different users have different information like mobile numbers and fax numbers.
Automatic outsourcing – auto push purchase orders
Eyre says, “MyPrintCloud handles day to day ordering with ease. There is automatic notification of low stock items and produces purchase orders for the replenishment of inventory and pre-printed stock. There is also easy outsourcing of jobs that are better suited to your trade partners through MyPrintCloud’s purchase order management platform, which can outsource jobs based on quantity ordered or preferred selected suppliers.”
Kick Starter program
MyPrintCloud offers a quick start program where a team of professionals assist customers to kick start them to get up and running fast, with dedicated account managers and web designers on hand for the first two weeks of getting started. Eyre says, “This means printers do not need to have the expertise internally to offer online services or configure an MIS platform. As part of the kick-starter program clients are run through a thorough training program while having professionals on hand to configure and implement.”
Accounting and integrations
MyPrintCloud is integrated into cloud based accounting packages like Xero, MYOB and Quickbooks. There is no need for rekeying of orders from online web stores, or direct orders manually created in the print MIS. Online and Offline orders, inventory and stock usage is passed to your accounting package either through a live feed or via a data import / export.
Help desk and support
With coverage across major markets in Europe, USA and Australia coverage for support is virtually around the clock, MyPrintCloud has implemented an onscreen chat facility where users have access to support staff immediately which has a major benefit to new users. In addition to chat, customers also have phone, email and Skype access to developers and support technicians.
In summary
Eyre says, “Put simply there is no hardware needed and no software needed. Mobility is a given in the cloud technology and runs on multiple browsers and devices including, mobile phone, iPads and laptops. You just need to sign in and access your instance with an active internet connection, support and account managers are on hand to guide you through the learning and implementation process.”
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