Fulfillment, Mailing Present Opportunities

In terms of specific printing markets, commercial printers see a large sales opportunity in fulfillment, shipping, and mailing, say data gleaned from TrendWatch Graphic Arts' most recent Printing survey. Here, 25% of all commercial printers responding to the study selected "broadening our fulfillment, shipping, and mailing capabilities" as an opportunity, compared to 22% of quick printers, and a mere 4% of prepress firms.

Although commercial printers tend to generate a 1% net profit from printing services, mailing and fulfillment service providers are generating 4% to 10% profit margins, according to the recent TrendWatch study entitled, "Mailing and Fulfillment: Where the Money Is (Or Should Be)." Thus, the perception of these services as an opportunity is not unreasonable.

But what do printers mean by "fulfillment"? According to one industry consultant, 90% of printers offering fulfillment services are doing little more than storing customer jobs that are awaiting shipment. Clearly, there is a lot of unrealized potential in fulfillment services.

However, adding fulfillment, shipping, and mailing services needs to be part of a printer's holistic "value-added services" endeavor, a strategy-centric approach to adding products and services that takes into account the overall gamut of customer needs and requirements, not just a "build it and they will come" philosophy.

As the demand for print continues to decline due to competition from other non-print media substitutes, printers will need to add more beyond the press and value-added services to compensate. Although this approach can involve working with those other media for clients (why not try to regain the work that is being lost to technologies such as the Web and e-mail?), it also can involve handling more stages of the print job itself—not just obvious things like binding and finishing.