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Any Success with web-to-print??
- Thread starter RyanFelty
- Start date
shoresigns
New Member
Do you mean an online ordering system where they pick a product, select sizes and options, and upload a print-ready PDF? Or a design-it-yourself online tool? The latter has been discussed here extensively, with the general consensus that it's a terrible idea. The former would be interesting to discuss, as we have a few regular vendors we order from that have great online ordering systems.
bannertime
Active Member
With a B2B setup, you have pre-made themed templates where the customer can only change certain text or layouts. i.e. business cards, promotional banners, flags, etc.
If you have a corporate account that wants simple uniformity across all their branches, franchise, or stores then having a B2B setup for them is excellent.
If you have a corporate account that wants simple uniformity across all their branches, franchise, or stores then having a B2B setup for them is excellent.
Check out pitchprint. Integrates into wordpress / other stores. Free for small files, $50 a month for unlimited size.
We looked into it for real estate / other stuff... It's easy enough to do, but in the end we realized real estate people are lazy, they want to give you a name / phone # and be done with it.
It would decrease production time down a lot, since it can auto d/l to your server, correct colors, no proofs needed, etc... We may implement it in the future, but we decided to hold off for now.
You CAN have success in it... look at Vistaprint. It all depends on who you're catering to, what products your selling, etc.
We looked into it for real estate / other stuff... It's easy enough to do, but in the end we realized real estate people are lazy, they want to give you a name / phone # and be done with it.
It would decrease production time down a lot, since it can auto d/l to your server, correct colors, no proofs needed, etc... We may implement it in the future, but we decided to hold off for now.
You CAN have success in it... look at Vistaprint. It all depends on who you're catering to, what products your selling, etc.
papabud
Lone Wolf
i used to do a lot of web to print when i worked for a commercial printer.
we had a web portal the customer could log into.
they would be shown a template they could fill in the basic info
and then submit the job.
it would drop into my machines hot folder where i could then tell the machine to run it.
they was all for large national corporate accounts.
i really cant remember what software we used. but it could be a template for pretty much anything.
i would assume could even be used for a banner.
but the template needs to be set in stone for the pricing, design and work flow to all happen correctly.
took a while to set up a working template. had to be adjusted to account for all kinds of data.
i believe the software produced a finished pdf file to print from.
or it could build a coma delimited file and then i could apply that to my template to print all the correct fields
we had a web portal the customer could log into.
they would be shown a template they could fill in the basic info
and then submit the job.
it would drop into my machines hot folder where i could then tell the machine to run it.
they was all for large national corporate accounts.
i really cant remember what software we used. but it could be a template for pretty much anything.
i would assume could even be used for a banner.
but the template needs to be set in stone for the pricing, design and work flow to all happen correctly.
took a while to set up a working template. had to be adjusted to account for all kinds of data.
i believe the software produced a finished pdf file to print from.
or it could build a coma delimited file and then i could apply that to my template to print all the correct fields
bannertime
Active Member
I do not, but we've looked into it a few times. Pitchprint is a good custom option. Not sure how well it'll work for creating multiple b2b storefronts. Pressero is one I remember off the top of my head, but they were also pretty pricey. Likely looking at about $2k to setup and a few hundred a month for a hands free setup. Well, outside of creating all the artwork.
Thanks for all the info guys. I would say we have looked into quite a few from the crazy expensive to the more affordable. Ones I can remember were Pressero, Catfish, Propago, and a there were a handful of others. Don't know if we will make that leap but hopefully we can get some more people to chime in who are using some of these programs. Thanks!
Hi Ryan,
Can't provide the answer you're looking for but sounds like you're in the same boat as us. We've done a beta using Wordpress with some plug ins and even a Shopify with basic upload, but nothing worthy of getting into the customer's hands. While some like Aleyant/Pressero seem overpriced, essentially like any piece of "equipment" it's making a business case for cost vs benefit. What I will say, having investigated what seems like every option on the market, is support is incredibly important if looking at a cloud based system. And web to print has been around long enough now that personally I'm likely to stick with something that has a decent track record so far. Don't forget that there have been a few, like in any growing category, that have come and gone.
Have a good one.
Can't provide the answer you're looking for but sounds like you're in the same boat as us. We've done a beta using Wordpress with some plug ins and even a Shopify with basic upload, but nothing worthy of getting into the customer's hands. While some like Aleyant/Pressero seem overpriced, essentially like any piece of "equipment" it's making a business case for cost vs benefit. What I will say, having investigated what seems like every option on the market, is support is incredibly important if looking at a cloud based system. And web to print has been around long enough now that personally I'm likely to stick with something that has a decent track record so far. Don't forget that there have been a few, like in any growing category, that have come and gone.
Have a good one.