Requirements of a Modern Web to Print Platform

Web to print software occupies a unique place in the asset list of a printer. This guide intends to explain:

The core functions and structure of a modern web to print solution. Laying out the basics.
The required traits and qualities of a modern web to print solution. Defining the details that make a difference.
The importance of a modern web to print solution and what’s at stake for print businesses. The big picture.

The Anatomy of a Modern Web to Print Platform

Web to Print Is Two Sided: Front End and Back End

The defining feature of any web to print system is the ability to create online storefronts. But just as important are the administration and supply chain management tools for managing those storefronts and the orders that flow from them.

The front end is where your customers and their end users live. A modern web to print front end needs to have a high emphasis on user experience, and flexible controls, and supporting varied product types.

The back end cannot be an afterthought. Modern systems should support every workflow needed to get orders fulfilled. This means modules for warehouse, fulfillment, inventory, production and procurement. If there is a process the web to print platform doesn’t cover, it should be agnostic enough to connect to outside systems to complete the loop.

Supply Chain Management

If the front end portals and the administrative back end are the skeleton of a web to print system, the workflows are the circulatory system. Workflows are everything that happens for an order to get placed, produced, and fulfilled. Every modern web to print platform should excel at handling the following four (4) types of workflows:

Order Workflows

End users must be able to view products, personalize VDP goods, and place orders. Personalization is a huge sticking point in distinguishing a strong web to print solution from a mediocre one. How easy is it for the user to get a proof ready to go? A smart system will use known user data to fill as much personalized info as possible to minimize manual entry.

VDP products are just the start. Other types of order workflows found in many modern web to print systems include:

Uploading: Products that allow the user to upload their own images.
Direct Mailing: Product workflows for sending direct mail pieces.
Configuration: Workflows that give end users the ability to specify options within a single product page (i.e. a shirt with color and size options).
Kitting: Groups of products orderable as a unit. Kit types can give customers flexible options for offering products to end users.

Approval workflows also fall under this category. Depending on how the approval workflows for a customer are set up, a number of things could happen when a user places an order. Will it need to be approved by a single manager? Or multiple? Will it need to be approved if it contains a certain number of order lines? Or if the order total is over a certain amount? If the user requests overnight shipping? Robust systems will be able to handle any type of approval workflow the customer requires.

Production Workflows

Once an order is placed, the production team will be able to view information about that order and start producing. Typically, this is where the system will separate customized print on demand products (VDP and upload) from static print on demand.

Procurement Workflows

Procurement is out-sourced production. Modern web to print system should support not only in-house produced products but also other types of products such as apparel, promotional items, etc. The best systems will support all product types and make sure they are all seamlessly handled with procurement workflows to carry the order from placement to fulfillment. This means the end user doesn’t have to know, nor care, where the products they are ordering are produced.

Fulfillment Workflows

This is where it all comes together. Fulfillment workflows should make it as simple as possible to get the ordered products to the right parties. This is where pick pack comes in, shipment carriers, and order closing. Wave, pick, and ship. Advanced workflows like batching can be invaluable for high-volume fulfillment.

Dropshipping from outside vendors falls into the fulfillment workflow category as well. The ability to handle dropshipped items alongside procured and produced items, even in the same order, gives producers immense flexibility over what they can offer their customers.

Required Traits of a Modern Web to Print Solution

Now that we have a solid understanding of the basics of what web to print software does, let’s go further. The goal when implementing a web to print solution is to win new business, win better business, and get more business from your current clients. More fundamentally, the goal is to have the tools necessary to become a complete solutions provider and move beyond transactional print work.

This is accomplished with a web to print solution that is modern, comprehensive, and goes beyond the bare minimum. So, let’s define the traits that should be considered requirements of a modern web to print solution.

1. Slick User Experience

Any customer-facing software needs to make excellent user experience a top priority. Just because we’re talking B2B doesn’t mean this doesn’t apply. With software and the web, people have grown accustomed to a high standard of convenience, ease, and intuitiveness and these standards apply to web to print.

A modern web to print solution should be easy to navigate and order on. Ideally, it should have the look and feel of any other e-commerce platform. This may seem like a smaller concern but it absolutely affects your bottom-line and how much value you’ll get out of your web to print system.

Think about it like this: how much value your web to print solution generates is based 3 factors:

Its use as a tool to win new business.
The effectiveness of the platform to retain customers.
How many orders your platform generates.

User experience can make or break that last point. You want the hundreds or thousands of end users on your platform to like using it and adopt it into their day to day routine. You don’t want it to be an awkward tool that your customers have to struggle to coax their employees into using. If that happens, you’ll start running into problems with that second point as well.

Some details to consider here:

Design: What does the portal look like? Is it dated or modern looking?
Navigation: Are the portals organized in a way that makes sense? Is it easy to get to the tools you need? What’s the experience of placing an order like?
Simplicity: Are the portals bogged down with information and settings irrelevant to most end users?
Responsiveness: Can the portals easily be accessed and navigated on all devices (desktop, mobile, tablet)?

2. Data-Driven Intelligence

Web to print is data-driven. The volume of data that flows through a modern web to print system is extensive. User data, product info, order data, inventory info, historic usage info, shipping information, user hierarchies and access. The list goes on. It only makes sense that the solutions that make intelligent use of data will be the most effective.

What does smart data use look like? It can be small things like retaining order history information so users can quickly reorder items. It can be big features too, like holding detailed info on each user so that that personalized items can auto-populate without manual input.

Speaking of big features, don’t neglect the importance of the search function. A powerful search engine is one of the best ways to improve the user experience and reduce friction. Most web to print users aren’t interested in browsing the portal for fun. They want to find their collateral and get going. But, and this is a key “but”, it’s not as simple as whether or not a system has “search”, because not all search engines are equal.

Pro Tip: One way to judge the quality of a web to print solution is to look closely at its reporting and analytical capabilities. Data capture must go deep into every aspect of what happens on the platform.

A smart system can take that data and make it reportable, giving access to relevant metrics regarding your operations and sales. This gives you the tools to make decisions and improve your business.

3. Control For Customers

With B2B software, allowing the customer to dictate strict and granular rules for who can do what is essential. Web to print of the caliber we are talking about in this guide is often used by industries with high standards for brand compliance, access to information, and order approval protocols.

The big players in sectors such as healthcare, finance, and real estate need high levels of control over the web to print user experience. They need to ensure they can protect the things that make the biggest difference in their bottom-line: brand, inventory, and budget. They may want some users to need approval before ordering anything and others to only need an approval over a certain spend limit. They may want to lock down certain variables on business cards like logos, titles, and ID numbers. A modern web to print system must be able to afford this level of granular control to appeal to enterprise-level customers.

4. Be More Than Print

Web to print systems have been touted for their ability to “bring print online” but today, print is no longer enough. That might sound harsh but the printers out there that embrace this industry-shift will be the ones who flourish.

That’s why a web to print solution needs to be a centralized destination for ALL of a customer’s assets and materials. And beyond that, it should be as easy as possible for users to order anything, regardless of product type. Marketers don’t think in terms of where and how their collateral and apparel is being produced. They just want to load their carts and hit Order.

And don’t forget about digital. You might think that digital asset management has little to do with web to print. After all, isn’t web to print about getting physical products to customers? Well, it used to be. Now there are very few businesses that do not deal with digital assets – logos, presentations, videos, etc. If your platform gives your customers a place to store, access, and share ALL their assets, physical and digital, that’s a leg up over other systems.

5. Finding a Software Partner

Up until now, we’ve been focused on feature sets and functionalities that define the best of modern web to print platforms. But this discussion would be incomplete with pointing out that investing in a software solution means entering into a relationship with the software vendor.

Flexibility is one of the biggest factors that differentiates web to print systems. You want a technology that is adaptable with a development team that is responsive to business needs of their customers. Flexibility sometimes means being capable of integrating with outside systems when needed. Most of the time flexibility broadly refers to an organization that is capable and proactive about meeting the changing needs of customers and what they want to do on their portal.

The users of web to print portals, the producer’s customers, are going to differ from one another. There is no way to predict every potential use case, business rule, or organizational system that portal customers will want or need. That’s why going with a web to print provider that can be a true partner rather than just a software seller is paramount to success.

One last thing worth mentioning on the topic of flexibility: the distinction between cloud-based and on-premise software. There are pros and cons to each, but cloud-based or SaaS (software as a service) software has a leg up when it comes to flexibility. Modern web to print systems must keep up with continuous changes in mobile platforms and operating systems, privacy and sales tax regulations, security requirements, SEO algorithms, and online payment systems. When the software is hosted by the software vendor, the solution can be readily customized, updated, and scaled up as needed.

From Print Provider to Marketing Solution Partner

The bottom line is: Print companies must adapt to become a strong competitor in the changing print industry. The print industry in the 21^st century has seen a decrease in the number of printers and simultaneously an increase in competition. Despite the uptick of mergers and consolidation, commercial printing is getting more competitive as the internet and digitization make it possible for a smaller subset of the most successful companies to capture a greater piece of the market.

The numbers play this out. From 2011 to 2017, the share of print jobs submitted through web-based means (vs. traditional channels) channels increased from 15.6% to 34.5%. There is no reason to believe this shift will slow down.

Print service providers are catching on to the fact that increased automation and a better customer experience are the keys to growth. On the operations end, investment in a strong, modern web to print solution will directly result in a more efficient workflow, reduced labor costs, and reduced turn times. On the customer end, it’s greater retention, more satisfied customers, deeper customer relationships, and more order volume. Those are the goals printers should be aiming for and that’s what’s at stake in the question of which web to print solution to invest in.

What Print Customers Get Out of Web to Print

As we’ve seen in this guide so far, modern web to print is just as much a tool for the producer’s customers. The needs, struggles, and logistical considerations of marketers, brands, and print buyers are the bedrock of modern web to print design. With that in mind, you can consider the following to be a cheat sheet for how to position your web to print platform as a sales tool. These are the five essential benefits of web to print from the customer’s point of view:

Streamlines the ordering process: Centralizing all company collateral and products on one internet-accessible platform for organizational members across branches and locations to order.
Simplifies and enhances personalization: Marketing materials can be proofed, approved, and sent to production with fewer steps and less time, while still adhering to brand compliance standards.
Protects budgets and inventory: Administrators can set granular limits on users with a variety of flexible functionalities such as approvals, product access, budgets, and order limits.
Enables company-wide consistency: Ensure that users are ordering the right collateral and the right version. Update products for the entire organization with a centralized platform.
Gives data-rich insight: Large organizations rely on analytics. A centralized marketing asset management platform provides the ability to track spending, users, inventory, and more.

Why we didn’t mention B2C

One thing you might have noticed reading this guide is an almost complete lack of reference to B2C printing. It’s true that web to print solutions are applicable to consumer print work as well as business to business, but there are enough differences between the two applications that it would be impossible to discuss both in the scope of this guide.

A web to print solution built for B2C is just different than a web to print solution built for B2B. And if the solution is trying to do both there will likely be some compromise somewhere. Letting anyone come and place an order is a fundamentally different experience than having a list of users, approval workflows, business rules, and brand compliance measures.

Wrapping It Up

That was a lot to take in, so let’s boil it down.

Web to print is about more than bringing print online. It’s a tool to win new business, become “stickier” with the customers you do win, and increase the amount of work you get from your current clients. More broadly, web to print software gives printers the ability to change the type of relationships they have with their customers and become marketing solution partners.

Doing so requires a solution that meets a certain standard of technology and design. The bar has been rising. It’s no longer enough to have a storefront capable of taking orders. The customers that are the biggest targets, with the most competition, need a solution that uses data intelligently, centralizes all their assets, streamlines the supply chain, and does it all with a modern and easy to use interface. There’s no point in settling for less.