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Timeliness of on line print or on line print-to-retail
September 5, 2007

Hi Bill.

I’ve just read your editorials in the April and May issues of Graphic Arts Monthly. (I get backed up in my re ading of trades, but I eventually catch up (sometimes)).

Your discussion of on line print or on line print to retail is quite timely. I owned my own photo printing company for many years and, as you know, such companies (mine being no exception) eagerly started offering such services a few years ago. Some of the early players offering ASP model solutions proved to be ‘too early for immediate success’, but it now seems to me that this type of offering is gaining traction; at least with B2B á la Vistaprint.com etc.

The Adobe/Fedex announcement and (I now hear) subsequent retraction of intent to embed the ‘Print to Fedex/Kinko’s” option within Acrobat has led others to believe the time may be right to offer such on line portals or software capabilities to consumer markets in general; or at least SOHO and related subsets.

I wondered if I could get your opinion on the viability of such a scenario and the willingness of printers in general to sign on or adopt software (at no cost up front) that would enable them to join a network of printers exposed to such buyers of print services. Do you feel printers would be willing to pay a commission on orders placed through such a network? Or do you think there are already enough options in the marketplace?

Thanks in advance for any light you might care to shed on this for me.

Regards,
Bob Banasik, AInstIB
Senior Business Advisor

Posted by Mark Vruno on September 5, 2007 | Comments (0)