Naimish Patel

Covid Success Stories – Companies Grow Print Sales During Lockdown!

Quocirca’s Covid-19 report reveals that 80% of print industry executives see the crisis as an opportunity to innovate and introduce new products and services. Biggest challenge Print Service Providers (PSP’s) were facing how to convert opportunities into results?  

During lockdown OnPrintShop web-to-print team was working with PSPs who had the vision to turnaround, adaptable teams to implement and scalable online technology,  to not only revive their sales but record historically highest sales launching creative products and new sales channels.  

An increase in demand for the digitization of paper-based processes is expected, reports 75% of Quocirca’s survey respondents; this is a good time to fill the gaps in the portfolio. 

Learning from Success Stories

These PSPs are consistently focused on Customer Centricity, offering creative solutions and collaborating with the right print and technology partners to stay ahead of the curve. 

Standard Modern, a large commercial printer based out of the USA during the pre-covid was dealing with large B2B accounts and faced a 70% fall in print orders. They identified that covid products had huge demand but they had no experience in the retail market. Their challenge was,

• How to launch a retail storefront? 
• Will the current OnPrintShop web-to-print solution which they were using for B2B support B2C? 
• How to select the right web-to-print for retail sales? 
• What kind of team to have and how to recruit and train them? 

They were faced with these and many questions, the pressure to increase the order flow, a learning curve to launch a new sales channel and print segment, both of which they had never dealt with earlier.  

They decided to launch the B2C storefront in their existing OnPrintShop B2B (web-to-print) solution with marginal additional cost. This made it easy for their team and clients to understand the retail solution. Moreover, as time was key, they decided to outsource set up services to OnPrintShop’s support team. In a short time and with an economical investment cost they could launch a new sales segment. 

At first, a retail website offering Covid products was launched within two weeks that generated great results quickly. This success encouraged them to roll out two more B2C websites to sell Canvas and Political campaign products – signage, marketing material and stationery, for retail.

With this, they achieved 100% growth in Online Orders and Generated new Revenue during the pandemic. They were able to achieve a Centralized Order for Large Corporate/B2B and Retail/B2C clients. 

“OnPrintShop has allowed us to offer our clients a “state of the art” designer to allow more customization within the products that we offer, OnPrintShop Support and Technical Services are the best I have ever encountered in an online eCommerce solution.” 

– Danny Sutherland, Information Systems Analyst

Another print company FireSprint, a signage wholesale printer introduced personalized Graduate Signs, Hero Signs which helped them achieve historically the highest sales during the lockdown. The team at OnPrintShop helped them design online templates which could be easily personalized by the end-customer with their photos and content. 

“OnPrintShop – you guys rock! We’re proud to say we’ll be processing our 20,000th order through our storefront in the next week or so. Today was also the highest-grossing sales day through our site ever (by a lot). The team there is just amazing.”

– Gene Hemzhie, President

Just before the pandemic, The UPS Store launched an online solution to help their 350 Franchisees manage online and walk-in orders. This helped them achieve a 50% increase in online order and a 50% reduction in order approval time and errors. 

‘’The relationship between The UPS Store Canada & OnPrintShop has been tremendous. We were able to successfully launch a new online Storefront offering a wide range of print products automatically assigned and fulfilled by the closest UPS Store. All with the convenience of next day service and 350 locations to serve our customers from coast to coast.”  

• Bill Ibberson, Vice President, National Print at The UPS Store Canada

In Conclusion

Covid has forced us to rethink business strategies and behaviour. The need of the hour is to transit from being just a printer to a solution provider, identifying and solving customer challenges. 

Trends indicate that post-Covid-19 the key to sustainability and growth would lie in building a Print Company which has the – flexibility to manage multiple sales channels and print segments, simplified order processing and most importantly, stay in touch with customers to proactively improve customer experience and repeat sales. 

Need is to not only invest in a web-to-print technology but to identify the right technology partner who offers – consultancy, multiple, affordable print solutions, flexibility to customize, successfully integrate third-party solutions, personalized support and set up services for consistent growth. 

• Naresh Bordia is V.P. – Sales at OnPrintShop Web-to-Print Solutions, since 2011 instrumental in the successful implementation of w2p solutions ranging from Print Shops to PI400 companies in North America. To know more about OnPrintShop, consultation or to optimize your Print Order Management, feel free to contact us at biz@onprintshop.com