Hard pressed printers up and down the country are scrambling to make sense of rapidly escalating costs after a horror few weeks of announcements and notifications hit the industry.
First the nation’s big three paper merchants announced inflation-busting paper price rises, of between 8-10 per cent, now Australia Post has pushed through major price increases for its bulk mail, four times the rate of inflation, and all compounded by the falling dollar and the Reserve Bank’s determination to keep the Aussie battler at its new low level. Add to this fuel costs currently at their highest ever level and many printers are wondering when the storm will end.
How successful or otherwise printers will be in passing on these costs to the market remains to be seen. Retailers, who are a key driver of the printing industry, are thankfully experiencing a consistent upswing at the moment, just recording their 14th consecutive month of growth, taking the annual rate to 4.6 per cent.
In a month which has seen several high-profile collapses including Rostone Print and Group Momentum and, the paper, post and dollar triple whammy has seen the industry currently awash with rumours around who is the next big company likely to go under.
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