Commercial Printing Pricing Power Weak

Overall inflation in the printing and publishing industry has been much higher than economy-wide inflation this year. Between September 2001 and September 2002, the overall Producer Price Index (PPI) for finished goods fell by 1.9%. The PPI covering all output from printing and publishing, however, rose by 2.4% over the same 12-month period.

At the same time, commercial printers aren't enjoying the same pricing power as the rest of the industry. While magazine, newspaper, greeting card, and book publishers have been able to successfully raise prices during the past year for a broad range of products, the price index for jobs coming out of commercial printing firms actually declined by 0.6% between September 2001 and September 2002.

Average periodicals/magazine publishing output prices rose by 5.2% for the year ending this September. Meanwhile, commercial printing firms actually doing the work to get periodicals/magazines out to subscribers and onto racks were being squeezed; the price index for magazine production by job printers declined by 1.3% between September 2001 and September 2002. All other commercial printing job categories recorded either absolute price declines or increases of less than 1% over the 12-month period ending this September.