Online Printing E-Commerce: Individual Consumers Bring Traffic, Enterprise Clients Bring Revenue

Online printing e-commerce is attracting more participants, and many platforms are supported by established printing companies. At this stage, however, most online printing businesses have not reinvented their operating models; they have mainly shifted short-run printing services to the web. The commercial barrier to entering this space remains relatively low.

The market is widely expected to see continued entry by large numbers of companies. Their approach may echo traditional printing's familiar pattern: low-price, homogeneous competition, narrow margins, and a cash-burning land grab. Based on discussions with executives from Gaituwang and Shangyin Kuaixian, online printing service orders come primarily from two customer groups.

The first group is individual consumers. Their needs are fairly straightforward, fulfillment is easier, competition is intense, and profit margins are the lowest. Price, convenience, and creativity matter most to them. To win these users, many online printing firms have engaged in aggressive price wars, while logistics costs keep pushing up operating expenses. Although individual consumers account for a sizable share of the market, their contribution to company profits is relatively small, and competition remains fierce.

The second group is enterprise-level consumers, which can be split into large enterprises and SMEs. Large enterprises usually have more ample budgets, and their printing needs mainly support marketing campaigns and internal communication. Yet most marketing-related work is handed to PR agencies or professional design firms, which can provide end-to-end solutions covering demand discovery, design revisions, and print execution. In the author's view, online printing companies that want to stand out should not settle for homogeneous, low-quality printing services; they need printing service solutions with differentiated core competitiveness.

The other segment is small and medium-sized enterprises. They also have printing needs for marketing promotion and internal communication, but their budgets are more limited and they are more sensitive to price. As a result, they prefer to work directly with printing service (online printing) providers, which can deliver targeted print solutions and remove intermediary links.

Looking at revenue performance from Gaituwang and Shangyin Kuaixian, individual consumers outnumber enterprise-level consumers in customer count, but enterprise-level consumers contribute the majority of revenue.

Therefore, for online printing enterprises to gain an edge in market competition, they should focus on the 2B side—the needs of enterprise-level customers. Enterprise-level consumers rank their requirements for online printing service providers as follows: 1. brand awareness, 2. service capability, 3. price.

Source: China Packaging Network (pack.cn); original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-361793.html