46 email: editor@printmonthly.co.uk March / April 2025 - Issue 353 FRESH PERSPECTIVES / WIL WILSON-DAVIES team members have created high barriers to entry. That’s why we created Artworker, to make pre-press automation accessible for printers of all sizes by building simple, affordable, cloud-based software. Our goal is to allow you to go from artwork upload to print without any manual intervention for the majority of jobs, making even micro-orders profitable. Personally, I’m highly optimistic about the future of print, and think everyone, no matter their size, should be too. The opportunity to thrive in this period of change is wide open for any company that positions itself to seize it. As in any rapidly evolving industry, it's the early adopters of new technology who gain a first-mover advantage, and in an industry as abundant as print, that advantage is well worth seizing. From the printing companies I’ve spoken to in the past seven months, these are the biggest shifts shaping the industry: • More customers making smaller orders. While demand for print is growing, order sizes on average are shrinking. • A rise of DIY design. With access to affordable, easy-to-navigate design tools and pre-built templates, more customers are designing their own artwork. • Speed is everything. A 2024 survey found that nearly two-thirds of online shoppers expect delivery on their orders within 24 to 48 hours. So, what separates struggling and thriving printing companies? From the 700 printing companies I’ve spoken to in the last seven months, the biggest correlation I see is many struggling businesses are still running in the same way they did ten to 20 years ago. A complaint I often hear is how difficult it is to make the shifting customer demand towards smaller order volumes profitable, particularly at scale. As a result, many printers are forced to pass jobs to competitors, handing them a potential long-term customer (a micro-£30 business card order, for example, can quickly turn into a long-term client worth thousands of pounds with a good first experience). What hasn’t helped is that the automation tools available on the market that help make small orders viable were previously limited to the biggest companies in the industry. With new technology, small orders have become profitable for printing companies of all sizes. The high costs associated with licencing fees and developers and consultants to build complex workflows managed by a select few ▲ The team at Artworker networking and socialising after a successful year of growth From the 700 printing companies I’ve spoken to in the last seven months, the biggest correlation I see is many struggling businesses are still running in the same way they did ten to 20 years ago
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