I Can Get It For You Wholesale. . .But So Can Everyone Else

A swift reaction from printers greeted the consumer launch of creative.kodak.com last month. The Website is geared to let small-office/home-office customers order short-run digital color print. Pricing menus are neatly displayed. But it had a few printshop owners non-plussed as they pondered whether Kodak was competing with them.

Not so, Kodak clarified within minutes (isn't the Web wonderful?), letting its print industry customers know that it is actually flowing new orders to them. The service farms out jobs ordered online to a selection of printers near Kodak's Rochester, NY headquarters, with more printers invited to join as the service catches on.

This example parallels another Kodak initiative, taking place at Four51.com, where printers and print buyers meet up and pair off—just like a dating site, but more fun. The phenomenon of using “social networking” sites to connect buyers and sellers is said to be the next big thing in business connections, branded Web 2.0.

These items also show how the speed of the Internet is turning traditional commercial engagements upside down. For our industry, it means competing with the 88% of U.S. printers that, according to a recent study by EDSF, can now be located online. (This hot link gets you a copy of the study, or write me for one.) It also means printers can find suppliers more easily. And they can find each other for jobbing out, or printing to wholesale sources.

To cite one example: Printable Technologies reports its peer group community is nearing 1,100 registered users. Printable software users share troubleshooting tips on stuff like how to insert variable data into digitally printed projects. Such user forums for the printing industry are springing up across the Web—from established venues such as gossnet.com and adobe.communities.com, to newer initiatives at the PIA/GATF Digital Printing Council (dpcforum.com, letstalkprint.com) or Ultimate Technographics' users site, opened last month.

The Internet also is making print rapidly accessible to ordinary consumers, opening new markets, much of it through digitally printed photography. This isn't a matter of breaking existing offset work into short-run digital jobs. It's new work driven by digital cameras found in 66 million, or 60%, of U.S. households. (Search graphicartsmonthly.com for the word “album” to link to enabling technologies.)

The social trend of consumer print customers is set to grow not only in photo albums and greeting cards but in ad specialities, such as photo pendants, china plates or even digitized photos sprayed on cakes.

As the mechanics for producing photo prints and especially photo albums reaches wider distribution, print becomes a consumer product—easier to order than a hamburger at a drive-thru. HP, tracking impressions on 240 Indigo presses running photo products worldwide, reports more than 2.5 million photo books and calendars were produced on its digital presses alone during the last two months of 2006. Its customers produced 7 million photo albums and calendars, and 440 million digital pages last year.

Major portals, such as Shutterfly, KodakGallery.com and HP's own Snapfish.com, tout photo-personalized postcards, key rings, T-shirts, purses, mugs, even lollipops. The magnitude of the trend is seen as Shutterfly, Redwood, CA, opens a 200-employee plant, its second, naming former Banta VP operations Dwayne Black to run it. Shutterfly did $40 million in fourth-quarter sales of personalized photo products, say IDC analysts, making them the biggest online player, with a 25% share.

U.S. sales of such specialties could hit $1.2 billion in 2008, according to the Photo Marketing Assn. A cadre of small footprint devices is now arriving to fit even small operations. This presents real revenue opportunities for those that prepare.

bill.esler@reedbusiness.com