What is Web to Print (or Web2Print)?

 

This type of online business, now widespread, offers significant advantages over traditional channels, especially in terms of time. In fact, customers of a web-to-print service are free to carry out, manage and monitor their orders directly online, 24 hours a day and from anywhere in the world, without the need for briefings in the company, offline orders, having to print etc…

 

The normalization of the ordering, billing and delivery process, which can be managed directly by the customer, and the transparency of the entire purchase management also give considerable added value to the relationship between the company and customers, who become an active part of the process.

The logic underlying the web-to-print is based on the automation and standardization of management processes and on the optimization of production processes and the entire printing workflow. With this technique it is possible for the printer to collect various orders and batch them together, with similar characteristics and therefore compatible with each other, and printing them together, on a single print roll or sheet. This saves the company costs regarding paper, ink and set up times. This approach allows, therefore, to reduce the production costs of an elaborate with a consequent reduction of the final costs of the product in favor of the customer.

 

Traditional companies, equipped with an entirely offline management and production system, often require a minimum order quantity necessary to reduce the production and management costs of the entire process. The generally high minimum purchase threshold, in turn, often requires large investments that not everyone can afford, especially if they are private users, SMEs or very young startups. This is why so many consumers have often had to give up the creation of customised products, contenting themselves with serial items, often far from their needs. The economic factor is of fundamental importance when it comes to web-to-print, as it has made it possible to significantly expand the print offer and the target audience of this service, especially with regard to limited print runs which are not effectively actuable from traditional printing companies.

In fact, based on current market demands, printing companies must be increasingly able to offer a flexible and convenient service that can respond to the growing demand for extreme customization. Consumers, in fact, are constantly looking for tailor-made products made according to a one-to-one market logic. With web-to-print it is now possible to offer a service accessible to all able to satisfy the needs of each individual at an affordable price.

 

Web-to-print is therefore an excellent tool available to consumers that is fully part of the mass customization strategies: "production of goods and services aimed at satisfying the individual needs of customers and at the same time preserving the efficiency of mass production, in terms of low production costs and therefore low sales prices.".

Various types of packaging such as adhesive labels, product boxes, ecommerce boxes, doypacks etc. are now available online.