Caught in the net

For the average print sales rep, the first decade of the new millennium has been a tough one. As the industry moves gradually but inexorably away from simple ink-on-paper as its core sales proposition, reps are having to get up to speed with a combination of new technologies, different types of customer and extended selling skills a whole world away from their previous professional lives. Unsurprisingly, in the last three years there has been a wave of early redundancies and abrupt job changes for salespeople, the remainder of whom now face perhaps their toughest challenge yet: the worrying possibility of being replaced altogether by web-to-print front-ends and online ‘virtual storefronts’.

23 May, 2008