Here's my advice for anyone considering investing in web-to-print: it will probably cost more than you think and it won't turn a bad business into a good business, but if you do your research and set realistic goals it will help your bottom line.
It took my Sydney business, Print2day, three years to create a website I was reasonably satisfied with. That process included concept, development and design, and then finally re-launching in October 2012. I started seriously researching the technology in 2009, although I had been following e-commerce with interest over the years. People's confidence in buying online had grown, so I felt the time had come for us to offer it to our customers.
I didn't know nearly as much about web-to-print as I do now. That placed me at a disadvantage with vendors, so I began a more in-depth study of e-commerce. I studied lots of websites across all fields, not just those of potential rivals or other printers. It's important to find what works and what doesn't, but one of the difficulties is that almost all the case studies out there involve success stories, so it can be hard to find out where people are going wrong.
I partly solved that problem by asking my customers for feedback. I would show them various design mock-ups to gauge their response and find out how open they were to buying print online. Just because I'm passionate about web-to-print, doesn't mean my customers think the same way. I received a lot of interesting feedback.
As my knowledge grew, it became clear what sort of system I needed. My main criteria was for any system to be cloud-based; I thought the cloud was the future, but not everybody was offering cloud-based solutions back then. The preparation stage took 18 months. One of our biggest frustrations was not having the right IT support. Upgrading internet and software systems to handle extra workloads was expensive and time-consuming.
It was a relief when the site finally launched in May 2012, but I still wasn't satisfied, because I didn't feel the wow factor. The good part was orders were coming in – not in a big way, but the jobs were paid for, so the guts of the site were working, even though minor things needed to be changed at the back end. However, I didn't feel the look was quite right. I wanted something that was smart enough to give the customer confidence to buy from us but not so smart that it scared them off.
I went back to my developers, who re-designed the site and added new features. This time, I felt they pretty much nailed it. That was back in October. It's still not perfect, but for now it suits us and our clients. I'm sure we'll adapt it again later based on client feedback.
You're probably wondering about costs. Well, they've been high, what with the start-up costs and the ongoing costs associated with IT support, redesigns, SEO and Google Adwords. However, web-to-print has definitely helped my business. We haven't been deluged with orders, but that's fine, because it was important we learned how to properly manage the system in our first year. We also had to make a point of making sure we didn't focus on web-to-print at the expense of our existing clients. We managed to grow our sales by 30% in 2012-13, but I would say only 10% of that was down to web-to-print.
If I had to look to the future I would say it is like being at base camp and now I still have the mountain to climb.
[Related: More Industry Insider columns]
Arthur Heaps is the owner of Sydney firm Print2day
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