Web-to-print has come to mean a lot more than a virtual shop front. Offerings now promise to automate the entire process from ordering to production and fulfilment. That makes the choice more complex. To avoid a welter of off-the-shelf products, should a printer choose from
a vendor or build a custom solution internally? The answer may be the hybrid option, either comprising a vendor’s product tweaked to meet unique requirements, or more substantially modified and integrated into systems sourced elsewhere or built internally.
There’s a huge number of competing products with similar features. This makes it difficult for printers to know how best to invest. Add to this the balance between developing custom functionality in-house or buying it off the shelf, and the world gets very complicated for the fledgling online printer.
Melbourne professional photographer Michael Warshall utilised web-to-print to diversify his business into three distinct companies. NuLab, a 35-year-old firm, is his original enterprise. It offers photography and wide-format digital print. PicPress offers corporate and press products to professional, advanced amateur and emerging professionals. NuShots is a consumer business with web ordering and fulfilment services for photobooks, calendars, greeting cards, prints, acrylics, canvas and vinyl wallpaper.
Backing this trio is an HP Indigo 5500, which Warshall says can match silver-halide quality. The selling point is professional quality, blended with an easy-to-use approach for customers, which includes bindery services.
Almost all work for the three companies arrives via web, but the degree of web-to-print automation varies. NuShots, the photobooks service, is an end-to-end operation, based on Portuguese W2P platform Areal Media, modified internally.
Customers can order from any internet-connected device, with a choice of cloud-based uploads or downloading software and working offline, but Warshall believes orders from mobile devices will soon render PC and Mac orders obsolete. “Our consumer business is a totally automated, encoded W2P operation. Customers register, are given a log-in and they can upload whatever they want for the job.”
Corporate orders into PicPress still require quite some manual handling. Warshall is not yet convinced today’s maze of off-the-shelf W2P products can drive the more complex orders.
NuLab customers order via a software application developed in-house called NuLab Digital Express. This sends the files and XML straight to a Kodak DP2 workflow. Bindery operations remain a manual process. Clients for signage and POS order separately from customers for digital commercial print. The workflows also remain separate, says Warshall.
Homegrown system
Trade print operation IBS Design Resources, which spent considerable capital building its IT, has it own homegrown answer to the welter of vendor W2P packages. It built its own, aimed specifically at small to medium-sized businesses.
IBS managing director Scott Siganto says the Edit & Print product, co-developed with 44 Gallons Technology, is a white-label solution using a common back end that SMEs can customise to their needs.
“For a minimal cost per month, print resellers can get a full end-to-end W2P solution, skinned to their own company,” Siganto explained.
Print resellers benefit from Edit & Print’s two editing tools, the first of which allows the user to build a design from scratch or start from one of thousands of templates based around printed and promotional products. The second editor is for corporates or franchises, which are only allowed to change certain fields from pre-approved art. Both are saved to press-ready PDFs.
Siganto describes Edit & Print as quick and easy. “We have it pre-populated with IBS products, to which the print reseller adds margin. Their customers can log on, choose a product, build their artwork themselves or choose from a pre-designed template, and when finished, the press-ready PDF comes directly through to our back end, without the print resellers having to lift a finger.”
The Edit & Print website also offers the owner the flexibility to accept artwork from their customers and check the files are correct. Then the IBS system automates the rest. Another benefit is that the print order is delivered in blind packaging that include the print reseller’s details as the sender. IBS is an invisible provider.
“Corporates and franchises are also well catered to, as the website owner can put up their templated artwork files, such as business cards, letterheads or anything they constantly re-order, and they can log in through their print company’s website, personalise the template and again it comes straight through to our system.”
This allows the print reseller to reduce their cost of sale significantly to be able to compete for the larger print users’ work and offer their customer 24/7 access. Siganto notes it is not confined to IBS products. “We’re offering freedom for our customers to turn on and off IBS products as they want and they can upload other products they might want to do in-house or send to another supplier.”
From his perspective, the IBS investment in Edit & Print is probably the most important one the company has made in recent years, augmenting and protecting its capital equipment investments for at least the coming decade-and-a-half.
NSW print company Frontline has reaped the benefits of linking a US-sourced W2P solution to an existing company MIS. QPrint Pro and its QPrint Storefront and Administrator module, from Quarterhouse Software, is now also offered directly to the Australian market by Quote & Print, a distinction that places it head and shoulders above the passing parade of W2P software.
Frontline managing director Wayne Godsell says the advantage of buying in a fully developed system that needs minimal customisation is its advanced level of development. “Being a US system, it has so many of the bells and whistles that similar Australian products, many still in the development stage, do not have.”
QPrint Pro’s eDesigner offers template construction and management, web-accessed design, PDF file output and an online artwork archive. QuickFlight module features soft proofing with automatic file preflighting – all of it web accessible.
Artarmon-based Frontline has been a Quote & Print user for 15 years. Godsell says the plans are to integrate QPrint Pro into his company’s full-version Quote & Print MIS.
When completed, the handshake between QPrint Pro and the MIS will mean that when a job comes in through the website, it not only generates artwork but a job ticket for its six Konica Minolta and Océ production presses, Roland DG and Canon wide-format equipment, and flexo presses and hotfoilers for label printing. “Setting up for new customers, the W2P will be fully automated.”
Whirlwind Print, a 14-year-old trade printing operation, was an early adopter of W2P. Kodak’s InSite StoreFront gave the company a virtual order desk for jobs that flow to two full-sized Komori Lithrones – a perfector and a five colour-plus aqueous – and a Lithrone 520, all located at a production facility in the Melbourne suburb of Knoxfield.
Pre-press manager Antoine Jacob firmly believes in buying in rather than building a W2P from scratch. “Companies that try to create their own in-house W2P system think they’re saving money, as that tends to be a lot less expensive than buying one from out of the box, but there are so many teething problems that it turns out to be expensive in its own way. Off-the-shelf products have had their teething issues resolved through months of R&D, so are less likely to cause problems.”
Making it merge
Nova Press in Burleigh Heads is one of the Gold Coast’s largest printers. The 11-year-old company focuses on trade print, offering both Shinohara offset and HP Indigo options, including VDP. Bindery solutions include celloglazing, folding and bookletmaking.
Managing director Chad Lemming sees Nova’s online access as a key aspect of the company’s success. Nova checked out many of the offerings and chose a W2P system from UK developer Redtie because of its straightforward configuration.
“My main problem with web-to-print systems is that for the most part they’re impossible to merge with our current online and in-house systems. We do have to re-enter all jobs and this can be time consuming and unfortunately brings human error as a possibility but you do not have too much choice. I personally spent more than $30,000 having my own system built when web-to-print systems were just starting, only to have it fall over and put in the bin,” he says.
“I am not overly familiar with a lot of them and, yes, there are a lot out there. Most of them would be suitable for most printers so I suggest just buying one that has a reasonable reputation and getting started on it. Each day wasted on deciding on the right system is a day wasted getting out there and signing customers up to the system,” he says.
Redtie marketing manager Selena Tombs acknowledges the sheer choice among W2P systems can be blinding. “It can seem daunting with the number of systems out there, but I don’t think variety of choice can be classed as a bad thing. A lot of the systems available are built on the same underlying component [Adobe InDesign Server] so, by definition, they are quite similar.
“It is the ones based on their own IP that offer the biggest variety, but if the printer defines the requirements before even looking at what is on the market, they will be in a very strong position to quickly narrow the potentials to two or three solutions.”
Brisbane’s Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE (MSIT) needed a user-driven interface for teachers to order syllabus notes and approached Konica Minolta about a web-to-print system. The college was referred to developer Pent Net, which partners with the digital press vendor, and was able to deliver a fully streamlined automated solution.
The teaching staff now orders course notes and other items online, and the order goes directly to the Konica Minolta Bizhub press without human intervention. Pent Net’s system also automatically works out which cover illustration to use, and whether the course notes should be perfect bound or stapled.
The cover is sent to the Konica Minolta colour press, while the course notes are automatically sent to a mono machine. If it is a colour cover, the cover just needs to be in Konica’s black-and-white output, with that press integrating the cover with the B&W printed materials, then binding or stapling the finished course notes. This end-to-end workflow automation has sped up MSIT’s process from ordering to production and finished product.
Pent Net’s Debbie Ludwig says one way to make a decision from the many offerings in W2P is to buy a product developed for the printing industry. “An off-the-shelf basic storefront just won’t have the necessary features, as well as enable the level of automation and integration with the printing process as a industry-specific web-to-print system.
“At Pent Net, we specialise in integrating many different printing and MIS systems. For example, we have integrated our software with Prism, Quote & Print, MYOB, SAP and other MIS systems. We are also JDF-compliant and connect to many offset and digital printers as well as Fiery RIPs.
“Vendors such as Konica Minolta that sell Pent Net’s software are relevant in today’s market as well. Konica Minolta has chosen to partner with Pent Net and sell our web-to-print software as it best suits their customers’ needs. We are flexible and agile, and we connect to many different systems including Konica Minolta machines,” says Ludwig.
Konica Minolta’s marketing communications manager, Meredith Roach, says Australian development is a strong criterion in sifting through competing W2P offerings: “Our bestselling web-to-print solution has been developed in Australia, and is supported from Australia. It gives our customers a distinct advantage, when it comes to designing and integrating a solution.”
James Valbuena, business development manager at Online Print Solutions (OPS), says focusing on the big picture is the way to cut through the me-too platforms crowding the marketplace.
The Sydney-based W2P developer, which was recently acquired by EFI, says: “A lot of W2P solutions will fulfill the immediate functionality required by the printer, such as B2B or B2C storefronts for template items, such as business stationery and file upload, but what else does the software offer?”
Valbuena suggests OPS’s scalable solution, which has been installed at sites such as Kingprint in Ballarat, Victoria. The system allows subsequent integration of modules for online VDP and cross-media marketing. “This allows the printer to open up new revenue streams as their online presence grows.
“Another point a printer should look at when purchasing a W2P solution is its ability to integrate with other third-party systems, such MIS and workflow solutions. Double handling can often be made obsolete when an integrated workflow is put in place,” he says.
M&A web-to-print
Major vendors obviously see strong value in integrating savvy independent web-to-print developers into their fold. Here are some of the latest acquisitions.
August 2011: EFI acquires Australian MIS developer Prism
December 2011: HP buys German MIS developer Hiflex, which creates W2P and cloud solutions
August 2012: Ricoh invests in US-based company PTI Marketing Solutions, developer of MarcomCentral W2P solutions
October 2012: EFI buys Australian web-to-print developer Online Print Solutions
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