Is the Internet Driving Screen Printing (II)

Screen printing service providers provide perfect services by optimizing the workflow (from quotation to ordering to production) to maintain a good relationship between customers and printers.
Workflow efficiencies and the ability to attract first-rate customers make screen printing seem to adapt to e-commerce, but whether e-commerce e-commerce is ready for screen printing is another entirely different issue.
The electronic commerce mentioned here is different from electronic sales. Auction-style websites encourage the use of sharp price cuts to obtain orders rather than through customer service. Shotgun-type printing quote sites are not so cruel, but they still emphasize the effect of price cuts rather than long-term relationships.
The service provider is in an active role, not a promoter. Impress’s Mekis said: “We are trying to strengthen existing customer relationships because we believe that improving relationships and reducing the burden is the key issue.”
The competition in service electronic websites is more intense than that of other printers in e-commerce websites. In particular, the emergence of online catalogs has made many brokers become suppliers. The vice president of market planning at Collabria said: "Of course there are some promotional materials in our catalog, and most of them are handled by the intermediary."
When browsing e-commerce print sites, you will obviously find that this is a world of fast printing, commercial offset printing and other mainstream processes. Customers cannot find screen printing through print e-commerce because many websites do not involve screen printing.
A survey of the top 20 print e-commerce sites conducted last summer found that only one website, Printbid.com, has screen printing as an option. Through a broad search on the site, information was obtained from 86 screen printers, mostly from the United States and Canada.
Many service companies know nothing about screen printing, at least in addition to the production of T-shirts and other wearables. For example: Printable.com said that they have a partnership with about 30 screen printers, but they did not provide any details.
Impress can at least enable a larger buyer to purchase screen printing products through their services. Enron uses Impress's services to find printers for certain special screen printing products, such as coffee cups and yo-yos.
Personal contact Screen printers randomly searching on PrintBid.com will have a phenomenon: no one has signed a print job through the site.
Thomas Mueller, president of HC Graphic Screen Printing Company, said: “When we registered online, we didn’t know if it would work. Anyway, we were still registered, but so far we have not yet received any orders. However, in the new business scope, Mueller said: "We have verbally developed the best and newest customer base. This model has been going on for 20 years and it will continue."
Ariston keeps their list on PrintBid, which is different from the standard printing business. Its president Mike Prude said: "We urgently need deeper consultations with our customers to determine the real needs of our customers. This is not the same as the real-time solutions we are looking for in other economies." Ariston asked customers to pass their passwords. Online access to print production information. Prude said there is no doubt that he will expand the scope of online delivery in the future.
IdentiGraphics, Inc. Small believes that Printbid.com is suitable for small printers who do not have market and sales technical experts. However, what they need to do is to establish a good relationship between the seller and the customer.
Small thinks that there is nothing in customer service that can replace personal contact. He said: "I am a proactive person and I have invested a lot in customer service. The Internet is an active tool and everyone uses it, but I don't think it will be as powerful as people have predicted. After all, People have too many choices.Customers are reluctant to fill out a one-page online questionnaire and are reluctant to spend an hour on it because there are still many things to deal with on their desktop.If there is a powerful search, customers will be able to easily Complete these tasks."
Small certainly believes in e-commerce, although his success strategy to date has come from completely different market perspectives. He said: "We use a sophisticated search engine to find the right market position and then look up the websites of potential customers. In the past, we spent a lot of money calling to confirm qualifications. Later we discovered that we could more easily qualify in advance through the Internet. Discuss with a specific product and customer."