Don’t miss out on opportunities that your ecommerce store or website will provide.
Few businesses consider a print solution as an important option when investing in ecommerce or a website. Yet, everything you send out is an opportunity to promote your products. But is that all there is to consider?
If you have received an Internet purchase from a reputable company recently you will notice that the senders include the following printed items: Invoice, packing or delivery note, a returns form and sometimes a brochure or flyer on the latest promotions.
There are three factors to consider:
1 – One is that the recipient of your product may not be the purchaser.
2 – Secondly, the purchaser is the recipient but other members of the household may open, use or see your printed brochure; who may not have known about your website.
3 – Lastly, any opportunity you get to advertise your corporate image must always be on top of your list because regular exposure will instil it into people’s memory, and project a sense of trust. This is just one principle for creating a brand for your ecommerce store or web site.
Examples of such trust building from branding can be seen by companies such as Marks and Spencer, Laura Ashley, Body Shop etc. Each logo/image makes you think of a certain quality of service, product or philosophy.
It is also apparent in business that regular printing and changing of artwork from a commercial printer can be expensive and take time. What you really need is the flexibility to change your own prints in real timenot when the print designer has decided to do the artwork. You also want to compete with your competitors by matching their pricing structure in real time and you have suppliers who have their own weekly specials that you could take advantage.
You also want to minimise the money wasted on prints that you don’t use. For example, you may order 500 prints of a monthly special flyer and then only send out 200 that month. You waste the cost of 300 prints. So how can a print solution help you? Especially when all you want to do is print-and-go?
By investing in a quality laser printer and with some pre-designed brochure templates you could easily edit your own print promotion material and print the exact amount you need. So next time you use a web designer make sure that some print solution element is included in the service offerings.
Alternatively, if you company has a high output get it done from a large print and design company. Either way, as an ecommerce customer you should add these services to your yearly support and maintenance budget and contract.
The solution concept is simple, for example:
-design an editable A4/US-Letter single/doubled sided flyer for you to use in Microsoft Office
-get instructed for one hour on how to change the text and product pictures; or have your designer send you the changed document
-then you have the freedom to change your flyer and/or just print it. If a decide you want a new flyer design at a later date, they’ll design a new one for you for and you carry on editing or printing as you did before. It’s an easy, user friendly print solution that keeps your branding efforts exposed and helps you stay on budget.
Andrew has been in business for the past 17 years, with 8 years in IT and design. Educated at degree level in business studies and once winner of the UKs South Wests Shell LiveWire business award. Today, his company ADK LTD conceptualises and brands other peoples products and services by offering advice and design of business processes and IT integration for Internet use.