This article appeared in the March 2025 issue of Australian Printer, authored by Print Media Centr’s Deborah Corn
2024 was a year of innovation, optimisation, consolidation, doing more with less, maximising profits on decreasing print volumes, getting work in and out faster with fewer employees, and reducing environmental footprint.
Innovation: After an eight-year hiatus, drupa, the world’s largest and most comprehensive printing event, returned to Messe Düsseldorf in May 2024.
The energy was high, and printing innovation was on display for 11 days across 18 halls of the vast fairground.
Why this matters? drupa is a bellwether for things to come and where many trends in the printing industry are born. Some suppliers will be building equipment for the next three years to fulfill orders from the show.
With the impending threat of imposing tariffs from the US and the potential for limited inventory due to supply and demand, I suggest PSPs get in the pipeline now if you are in the market for new equipment.
Consolidation: Mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, and closures were prevalent 2024 trends in the printing industry. This was felt on the customer side, too. Everyone is operating with less time, money, and people.
Adjusting how to communicate, educate, and market to customers and consumers will require embracing empathy and patience and delivering it.
Provide customers with convenience and as much information about your business as possible, including what you do, who you help, what you sell, why it matters to that business (vertical), how it can help that business (vertical) generate results, an easy way to order and pay, and manage assets if that applies.
If you can’t do it all, ask your customers which is most important to them, and make decisions from there.
Frustration: Workforce development ranks high as a collectively shared problem and one of the top trends in the printing industry.
We don’t do a great job of changing the perception of print from an antiquated communication channel that kills trees and contributes to climate change to a modern, data-driven, and innovative service that invests heavily in producing products to be used, reused, recycled, and reclaimed.
Getting people excited to work in print is challenging if they think it’s a dead-end industry for a career. That is a high hurdle to get over.
We must step outside our echo chamber and launch a global PR campaign to address these misperceptions. The problem? Utilities and financial institutions, frequent users of ‘go green, go paperless,’ are also major paper and print buyers.
Industry organisations don’t want to publicly call them out and upset them, prioritising industry business relationships over consumer protection from misleading environmental claims.
If we can start a meaningful conversation with the world to illustrate that print is not the enemy of the environment, we are in a much better position to keep the focus on the value of print with print customers, and the value of a career in print with potential employees.
2025 is going to test our resolve individually and as an industry. We have now entered the ‘survival of the fittest’ era. The industry will get smaller.
Those who haven’t evolved will find it harder to catch up, and those who have evolved or are in the process should look at becoming a one-stop resource for all communication, marketing, sales, promotional, and education needs – online and offline. Find partners – you don’t have to do it by yourself.
The global political climate and related economic uncertainty will continue to present many challenges to the industry. Opportunities arise for those prepared to speak about price increases and potential supply chain disruptions with relevant customers in advance, so they are also prepared and budgeting accordingly.
If you haven’t met with all your current customers to find out what else they buy from other printers and related vendors, start there. You are leaving money on the table, and more than you know.
Looking for new ways to share information and break free of the noise in all marketing channels will be significant trends in 2025.
Print Media Centr’s mission is to provide ‘printspiration’ and resources to print and marketing professionals around the world. We will continue that mission in 2025, with a priority on growing our global audience through trust, authenticity, and a value-based exchange of our content and their time. Print Long and Prosper in 2025 and beyond!
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If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.
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