Managing director John Weichard said this combined power would give these printers access to greater advertising spend, a larger R&D budget, stronger business relationships and a higher media profile.
“PeoplePrint is well advanced in bringing the buyers to the marketplace and it is obvious that there are many things that an online group of 260 printers can do that an independent printer cannot,” he told ProPrint.
Weichard said registrations had been received from every Australian state and territory and New Zealand, spanning all major sectors, from A1 offset and standard digital to large-format and label printing, he added.
Weichard recently caused controversy with an ‘Open letter to the Australian printing industry’ in which he warned printers to combine their resources or risk being crushed by Vistaprint.
[Related: Vistaprint aims to crack Australia]
However, one reader commented on the ProPrint forums that his firm’s superior customer service would keep Vistaprint at bay. Another accused Weichard of using “scare tactics to promote a new business venture”. A third said PeoplePrint’s business model was flawed.
Weichard defended the model, saying that PeoplePrint’s advanced workflow automation had “removed great chunks of waste from the print buying process”.
He said buyers could now “purchase more and better printing for less money and much less effort”, while sellers “produce more print with less effort, less waste and greater profit”.
Weichard said PeoplePrint would profit from the trend towards e-commerce just like online graphic design marketplaces such as Freelancer.com, 99designs and DesignCrowd.
“They’ve got a hell of a lot of graphic design passing through their hands,” he told ProPrint.
PeoplePrint is scheduled to launch in 2012, said Weichard.
Some 55% of respondents to last week’s ProPrint online poll said they had lost work to Vistaprint.
[LinkedIn: Can Vistaprint match you on quality?]
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