The Combination of the Printing Industry and the Internet: a Collision of Tradition and Innovation

[ppzhan abstract] As the Internet's influence on social life grows, industries of all kinds have begun to use online channels as a breakthrough for transformation and development. The success of some online shopping websites has also changed consumers' shopping concepts. They have begun to feel the convenience brought by the online shopping approach of seeking far rather than near. Even traditional industries such as printing have gone online one after another to expand their markets.

Cases of adding Internet thinking to the printing industry are not uncommon in the industry, and they take a wide variety of forms. Looking across the industry, two models are representative - printing companies take the leading role, building platforms or even setting up dedicated companies to "get online"; individuals take the leading role, and driven by their vision, some printing people with Internet thinking have completely detached themselves from traditional printing plants, devoted themselves to the Internet, and committed themselves to building an Internet printing order-taking platform. In the two models above, the former is a company and the latter an individual, and both have become pioneering banners in the printing industry's foray into the Internet.

For doing online printing, there are still many points to worry about, such as the following five:

1. You will die if you do not do digital printing. The quality of digital printing is getting higher and higher, and its unit cost is getting lower and lower. If this continues, the ones affected, I think, will certainly be enterprises doing short-run and gang-run printing! In particular, jobs with print runs of 100-500 sheets will be hit hardest, followed by other types of traditional printing enterprises, which also depends on the pace of technological development and cost reduction of digital printing equipment manufacturers. If the unit cost of digital printing falls by 30% each year, then by 2016 all jobs of fewer than 2,000 sheets will be taken away by digital printing.
2. IT boosts Jianhao digital printing. When gang-run printing and digital printing developed, some IT software companies also developed related software for the printing industry, including software used to make online photo books and business cards. Some of the software was quite good, but these IT people did not understand printing at all. Jianhao has its own IT department, so why don't we develop such software ourselves?
3. Online printing can achieve 100% B2C
4. How much money does it take to invest in digital printing? It mainly depends on where your positioning is. In fact, traditional printing, short-run printing and digital printing should be combined earlier and put into application.
5. What should be considered when investing in digital printing? Doing digital printing is not just a matter of buying a digital printing machine; the overall process needs to be considered comprehensively, such as front-end image upload, online production and IT implementation. The biggest issue is to consider the customer's requirements for speed and how to deliver products to customers quickly. In addition, it is necessary to consider improving automation and optimizing the process flow to reduce costs, so as to be more competitive.

Experts in related industries say that compared with traditional printing organizations, online printing enterprises may be more transparent and simpler in cooperating and communicating with customers, and can better reflect the character of the times. Today, when everyone is interested in the Internet and is more skilled in related operations, it is no wonder that some traditional offline printers are also transforming one after another, hoping to make a big splash in the online printing market.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-361796.html