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To conclude our Web-to-Print (W2P) benefits blog series, we’re going to hone in on the end user. Thus far we’ve covered benefits for operations, leaders, and sales and marketing, and now it’s time to turn our attention to the print buyer – whether it’s the consumer accessing a print shop’s B2C site, or a salesperson accessing their company’s B2B branded site to order marketing collateral.
In a nutshell, W2P is a self-service online ordering system. That means as an end user you’re in the driver’s seat. You can say goodbye to the days of communicating back and forth via telephone calls and emails to finalize your print jobs.
To most, this is a great convenience, while others may a bit more skeptical as they’re not familiar with the process. But a W2P storefront is designed to make the ordering experience more accessible and faster. It should be intuitive for the user to create and submit even the most complex jobs quickly.
While there are a great number of benefits for all print buyers, there are specific benefits that will be more relevant to B2B print buyers. Before we jump to those, let’s address some of the overarching benefits that are relevant for all print buyers, regardless of whether you’re a consumer or business user.
Overall Print Buyer Benefits
1. 24/7 accessibility
The great thing about W2P is you can place your order when it’s most convenient for you, using your preferred device. You no longer have to get your order in between the Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. timeframe – you can place your order with your desired specifications at any time of the day.
2. Print on demand
Today, advances in digital print technologies mean that much shorter runs are possible. These shorter runs are more cost effective and give you the flexibility to print your jobs in the quantity that you need, exactly when you need it. Once you input your order, you’ll get the price and can check out right on the spot.
3. Personalization and customization capabilities
Personalized documents and products are a hot commodity today. You can upload your document to a W2P storefront, or select a pre-created template or product, and customize it as you deem fit. For example, if you’re hosting a surprise party and want to send personalized invitations to your friends and family, the online storefront has the capabilities you need to personalize and customize the invitations.
B2B Print Buyer W2P Benefits
Whether you are part of an SMB or large enterprise, you’ll need branded assets and sales collateral for your business. Your print service provider can set up a private W2P portal for your business to order print documents (or even omnichannel services), so you can comfortably access your essential templates and print them as needed.
1. A branded storefront
Your private storefront can be customized to match the look and feel of your brand. That means if you, or a colleague, need to order pre-defined collateral or a new product, you have a secure place to access your ready-made templates, along with customizable options to suit your corporate needs. That includes color, logo and other critical branding elements.
2. Centralized Ordering Process
A bonus is time saved because there will be no need for additional design approval steps – the products available will already be on-brand and approved for use. Management won’t need to see every version of the pre-approved template you’re ordering since they would have already accepted the original design and content.
3. Reduce inventory levels
Gone are the days of ordering in bulk and storing the excess documents. You can now order your documents to be printed on-demand and won’t need to worry about any distribution of out-of-date materials.
Additionally, optional fulfillment integration capabilities are available if you run out of documents and want to receive a steady stream of documents throughout the year. You can designate how often these orders are fulfilled and have them sent directly to you.
4. Improve the effectiveness of sales materials
With W2P, you can localize or personalize materials to meet your exact business needs. For example, you can use your database to customize your sales collateral for customers based on their location or interest to drive more valuable relationships with your current and prospective customers.
5. Compatible with your organization’s approval process
Your branded B2B storefront can have a built-in approval process to match your organization’s approval process. Specific managers can approve particular users, multi-level approval is possible (approvals that must go to through more than one approver in sequence), or you can even use different approval processes for different order amounts (for example all orders above $500 can be approved in a certain way).
6. Easy tracking and order management
Just like any other online shopping experience, you can send the materials to whoever and wherever you want. Maybe it needs to be sent directly to you, or perhaps you need to send it to your team in a different state – regardless, this can all be done through the W2P storefront.
When you place an order, you can receive automated email alerts to let you know your request was received and again when it has shipped. That way you’re in the loop for the entire process, and you’ll know exactly when to expect your materials.
7. Eliminate or minimize unnecessary spending
In addition to the above benefits, you won’t need to pay to maintain a storeroom for your material and you’ll have a much better handle on what’s being ordered, better manage spending across your business and save money on error reduction.
