New Industry Report: B2B Web Portals, Opportunities and Trends
In April 2023, NAPCO Research released a report in collaboration with Propago. This report gives an in-depth analysis of data from over 100 commercial printers who offer customized web portals (web-to-print) to their B2B customers.
This industry report is available to download in full for free: Web Portals, New Path to Print Profitability
Read on for a summary of the research goals, a few significant findings, and the 3 biggest takeaways from the report.
Research with a Focus on B2B Web Portals
The purpose of this study was to shed some light on the topic of customized web portals for B2B customers who need to manage and make available all their marketing materials as well as implement complex business rules such as branding, inventory, and budget controls.
Rather than giving the reader a broad snapshot of web-to-print’s current place in the print industry, this report dives into the details of web portal solutions made specifically for those high-volume, long-term customers.
Objectives of the Research
- Identify the opportunities and challenges in offering web portals.
- Qualify the benefits of offering print customers access to customized web portals, including helping customers better manage, monitor, and control spending, ordering, and branding across multiple applications (e.g., print, promo, apparel, digital).
- Validate the value of offering organizations web portals for managing multiple customer marketing and communication requirements beyond print, from digital to apparel to promotional products.
What Is a Customized Web Portal?
In order to collect useful, accurate data that tells a story about web portals, the term was thoroughly defined so that survey respondents were all clear and on the same page about the type of web portal implementation referred to.
A Web Portal is defined as:
A customized/branded online portal configured to the specific needs of each client. These web portals feature web-to-print and other marketing asset management capabilities. Some solutions come with production, inventory, and fulfillment backend capabilities to streamline operations. These systems enable commercial printers’ customers to manage their products, branding, and users and make it easy to place orders.
Some Key Findings
One goal of this research was to attempt to quantify the bottom-line growth that printers who offer customized B2B web portals have experienced and expect to achieve in the near future.
Statistic: In the next 2 years, respondents that offer customers access to customized web portals expect revenue from those portals to increase, on average, by 12%.
The report also investigates the many value-add features that the most competitive web-to-print solutions have. We wanted to uncover the importance of these capabilities other than “web-to-print” that modern web portal solutions have.
Statistic: 82% of printers who offer B2B web portals agree that robust reporting tools are instrumental in meeting the expectations of large clients.
Another focus of this research was to find out what are the most common and crucial benefits of offering customized web portals. We wanted to know specifically what areas of business this kind of print software affects and improves the most.
Statistic: 94% of printers surveyed say that offering powerful customized web portals has strengthened their customer relationships.
Answering the Big Questions on B2B Web Portals
This report answers many questions that printers who are new to the B2B side of web-to-print tend to have, such as:
- What are the top industries that are a good fit for customized and branded web portals?
- How long does it take to set up portals for a B2B customer?
- What are some of the major challenges that printers have with offering web portals?
- What are the most important capabilities in a web-to-print solution that contribute to success with B2B clients?
Find the answers to these questions and many more with detailed stats and analysis in this NAPCO Research industry report, brought to you by Propago: Web Portals, New Path to Print Profitability
