Web-to-Print: The Difference between B2C and B2B
Generally speaking, web-to-print is a customer service interaction between someone who buys printed products and one who sells it. It moves prepress processes online, streamlining the creation, editing, and approval of products. In the end, this process reduces overall operating costs. Depending on which side of the printing industry you are on, web-to-print refers to two different segments based on the targeted end user.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
B2C web-to-print models typically are public or ecommerce print shops where anyone can order a variety of printed items. The majority of the traffic coming to these sites is generated from advertisement and web searches with the owner having no previous relationship to the consumer. The whole workflow is very transactional with limited relationship building and with very few points of interaction. Consumers are only required to login or provide personal information at time of order.
Business-to-Business (B2B)
B2B models usually come in the form of a web portal with controlled access typically based on provided login credentials. In most cases, the relationship has already been established offline and a lot of the user profile information is already identified before they even log in. These internal portals manage all of the marketing assets for the company, or at least everything that might need to be shared across the organization in a controlled environment.
Let’s continue discussing the B2B web-to-print model and focus on 5 benefits using a web-to-print solution:
1. Long-Lasting Relationship
Web-to-print is much more than just a feature offering. It is a building block that can turn an everyday print job shop into a marketing solution provider. The user experience of the web-to-print storefront is very important as the users are often repetitive visitors to the portal.
2. Streamlined Workflow from Creation to Production
Marketing assets can be ordered through the streamlined web-to-print workflow. From customizing variable print materials to ordering branded print-on-demand items, users can very easy acquire the marketing materials they need when they need.
3. Stricter Brand Control Management
Larger organizations know the importance of ensuring branded materials have a consistent look, from font type to company colors. This is the most important benefit of using a web-to-print solution. All products are organized with a portal where a controlled set of users can design, order, and approve, while staying within brand guidelines.
4. Approval online without needing face-to-face proofing meetings
Another benefit from the streamlined workflow, is that clients don’t have to make in-person appearances to sign off on production proofs. Many of the prepress functions of the old job shop models have been integrated into the user interface and order process in a web-to-print solution.
5. Controlling You and Your Customers’ Budgets
All of the benefits above contribute to the last benefit of using a web-to-print solution: Saving Money! You will eliminate redundant and unneeded process throughout the workflow saving time and costs including job estimating, many prepress actions and manual approval procedures.
Moving to a web-to-print solution will benefit any commercial printer take the next step to becoming a more complete solution provider. Find out how Propago can help you with you web-to-print needs.
