Competing with online printers: differentiation must add up

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Start with the customer’s task

“We need flyers” can describe very different jobs. One customer has approved artwork and a flexible delivery date. Another needs several language versions, approval from an association and sorted deliveries to multiple event venues. Both are asking for print, but the scope differs. Deciding which parts to offer is a business choice.

Our recommendation is to review real inquiries and record what the customer does, what your business handles and what remains uncertain. Check which additional services were actually paid for. Praise for your helpfulness is not evidence of willingness to pay. Equally, a modest, clearly defined service might solve the precise problem that leads a customer to consider another supplier.

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Establish the comparison before reacting to a price

Record the comparison on a short sheet whenever a competitor’s price influences your decision. Record the visible configuration and the date it was checked. Mark unclear services as unresolved. Do not fill gaps with assumptions about a supplier’s size or operating model. You can then establish whether you are discussing a price difference or two different offers.

If the cheaper offer is equivalent, accept that finding. It supports a focused decision: improve costs, offer a suitable part of the job, add a demonstrable benefit or decline the order. Dismissing online printers as a category contributes no useful evidence to that choice.

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Your own costing sets the boundaries

IHK Chemnitz recommends considering market prices alongside internal costs. Purchasing, production and selling belong in the assessment, and both variable and fixed costs must be covered over time. If the required price exceeds what the market accepts, the chamber identifies a different customer segment or cost reductions as options to investigate.Evidence: [1]

Make the work that falls outside production itself visible in your printing business’s costing. Record active time spent clarifying artwork, splitting deliveries and coordinating repeat questions. Apply a consistent costing method: do not include a task fully in an hourly rate and then charge it again through a separate allocation. Identify missing actual timings as uncertainty rather than presenting an apparently precise margin.

Examine the bottleneck as well. An order might use spare press capacity while blocking a short-staffed finishing department. Alongside the order value, assess how long the job occupies the constrained resource and which other work it might displace. An idle press alone is not a sufficient reason to offer a special price.

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Three kinds of difference you can investigate

Purchasing work is a useful first area to examine. Approved templates, structured repeat ordering, branch distribution or explicitly included artwork corrections can form a defined offer. The key question is whether the audience wants to delegate that work. Ask about their current process and a specific improvement rather than promising “more service” in general.

Second, quality can be described more precisely than “premium”. Fogra’s ProcessStandard Digital covers output process control, colour fidelity and workflow assessment, among other areas. It illustrates that print quality can be evaluated using defined procedures and conditions. A general quality promise is not equivalent to such an assessment or certification.Evidence: [2]

Show suitable samples and explain which characteristic the customer should assess in them. Describe existing checks precisely. Present only certifications your business actually holds and that apply to the advertised scope. A distinctive finish becomes a useful argument when it serves a recognisable purpose in the customer’s application.

Third, documented environmental requirements may influence supplier selection. Blue Angel’s criteria for printed matter, DE-UZ 195, address materials, suitable inks and adhesives, and production considerations. The environmental label for a printed product therefore involves more than selecting a particular paper.Evidence: [3]

Clarify the evidence the purchasing team actually needs while discussing the inquiry. A broad claim such as “sustainably printed” tells a buyer little about the criteria or scope. Explain the documented characteristic and the records you can provide. The sources cited here do not establish certification of KT-Digital or any hypothetical printer discussed in this article.

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Hypothetical example: materials for several locations

Our recommendation would be a limited trial order with a clear contents list, a checked address file and agreed clarification procedures. Record packing effort, corrections and delivery coordination. Afterwards, ask the customer which internal work disappeared and which remained. That feedback and your actual costing can show whether a recurring offer makes sense. The example deliberately assumes no financial saving.

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Turn the difference into an understandable offer

Connect the customer’s task with the included work and the prerequisites for delivering it reliably. State who provides the distribution list, how later changes are handled and when artwork must be approved. Customers can then compare your offer with the work they would otherwise perform without having to guess at the benefits.

A landing page should reflect the same clarity. Samples, explained processes and genuine evidence say more than a long list of unrelated industries. If you are still trialling a service, describe that scope accurately. A well-defined offer can be persuasive without claiming to cover everything or to outperform every alternative.

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Evaluate a small market test carefully

Our recommendation is to test one clearly defined combination of audience and service. Avoid changing the audience, price, delivery scope and advertising channel simultaneously if you want to understand the response. Decide beforehand which finding you need in order to continue.

1. Define the offer

   Write down the customer’s task, included work, prerequisites and available capacity.

2. Test demand

   Present the offer to suitable contacts and record reasons for interest, rejection or questions.

3. Review actual costs

   Compare the work performed with the plan, then deliberately choose whether to continue, change or stop.

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Which figures support the decision?

Begin the evaluation with a few measures whose meaning everyone involved understands in the same way. Record relevant inquiries relative to target customers actually reached, accepted quotations relative to comparable quotations issued, and actual effort per completed order. Separate one-off setup from recurring work. Also record rework and complaint causes so that strong revenue does not conceal a difficult process.

Do not impose an industry-wide target on a small sample. Instead, assess whether demand, production feasibility and your own costing fit together. The next growth step may be a more focused offer, a better handover or a deliberately narrower range. A sound competitive position rests on value customers recognise and your business can consistently provide at an appropriate cost.