Quick Printing

Lately, everybody’s going green. I’ve been awash in green news about FSC/SFI certification, wind powered paper mills, carbon setoffs, and sustainable printing. From what I can tell, the printing industry has been pretty good about greenwashing. Most green claims seem to have at least some merit. That can’t be said for other industries.

I live in a state with an economy largely dependent on coal. My home state bears the ugly scars of so-called mountaintop removal mining, but coal is still king despite the ravaged landscape. Adding insult to injury, billboards and ad campaigns are promoting “Clean, carbon neutral coal.” As ABC’s John Stossel says: “Give me a break!”

Despite the fact that I haven’t hugged any trees lately, I am an environmentalist of sorts. I believe in doing something about global warming. I’m in favor of energy efficiency. I support sustainability. I buy shade-grown, fair trade coffee. I recycle. I appreciate the efforts of such outfits as the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation. What I don’t appreciate is being greenwashed.

From talking to other folks, I gather that they don’t appreciate it either. That’s why I thought I’d share with you two resources that can help you cut through the green hype. At www.greenwashingindex.com contributors post and rate green advertising claims. At www.terrachoice.com  you can find out “The Six Sins of Greenwashing.” You might also want to check out www.us.heidelberg.com/eco which has info on sustainable solutions for the printing industry “minus the greenwashing and marketing hype.” Paying attention to the environment is a good thing. Putting out misleading information on environmental efforts is not.

A couple of years ago, FedEx Kinko’s showed up at the On Demand show touting its printing capabilities. Evidently this was not a viable venue for them because their appearance was a one-shot deal. I guess they finally figured out that show attendees were printers who saw them as competition and who were not the least interested in how whiz-bang their operations were.

Well, the Kinko’s name has been buried under the FedEx Office brand, and FedEx has said precious little about how the former “most recognized brand in the printing industry” is faring these days.

So who should show up at this year’s On Demand show? None other than the UPS Store and its sister franchise Mail Boxes, Etc. (MBE). They were there touting their soon-to-be introduced online print ordering capabilities for their 4,300 North American franchisees. The Now-Docs based system is a big step for them, but seems a little late to the game since Web-to-print has become almost a necessity for successful print providers. Obviously, they are pushing to grow their printing services business, but the question remains: What is to be gained by touting that to an audience of print service providers with whom you are competing?

Wonder if they will be back next year?

A while back there was a recurring bit on Mad TV called “Lowered Expectations.” That came to mind just before we departed for the On Demand show. After all, the economy sucks, credit is clogged, and the general mood is dark. Why exhibit or attend a trade show when nobody is in a buying mood?

Or so I thought. I’m not saying that the show hearkened back to the glory days of yesteryear when hardware and software were being snapped up by ravenous printers. However, the show was much better than I had expected. Attendance was steady, vendors were busy, and people were selling things to people. Presstek sold a 52 DI off the show floor. Xanté sold several Ilumina Digital Envelope Presses. All in all, a pretty active event.

There are two basic ways to handle hard times. Hunker down or go out and do something about the situation. Seems as if there were lots of folks at On Demand who had decided not to hunker down. Those are the people who will come out of this economic malaise in the best shape because when you hunker down you’re very likely to get passed by.

The On Demand show is running this week in Philadelphia. Considering the state of the economy, I doubt any attendance records will be broken. That said, I can’t go along with those folks who are predicting the demise of printing trade shows as viable enterprises.

Right now we have three major shows in our industry — Graph Expo/Print, Graphics of the Americas, and On Demand. I’ve heard some say that GOA is more of a show for South America, but that’s another story for another time. In the franchise arena, the bigger trade shows are bundled with franchisees’ conferences. Franchise Services (PIP, Sir Speedy, Signal Graphics), AlphaGraphics, Allegra, and Minuteman are the main ones.

Granted, there used to be a lot more. NAQP had its own show. There were more franchise shows before consolidation in that industry segment. Also, there were the Charlotte Show and the Gutenberg Show, which have gone by the wayside along with other regional efforts that were no longer sustainable.
I do think that perhaps existing print trade shows may shrink as vendors buy less space and bring less equipment, but the shows that exist today will still be around for some time. The change I look for is for vendors to augment their trade show presence with demo centers and road shows. Meanwhile, trade shows will find non-traditional ways to augment their offerings and target their audiences. Like printing itself, I think rumors of the death of the trade show have been exaggerated.

The heads of three major printing franchise systems and PIA have been in discussions with HP about MarketSplash, the Web-to-print offering that is seen as competing with printers. Thus far there hasn’t been any resolution, but meetings are scheduled at On Demand and at HP headquarters. “The intent of this dialog with HP is to request they reconsider the positioning of MarketSplash before more damage is done to the HP name as they attempt to make further penetration into the print-for-pay market,” according to a letter sent by Allegra CEO Carl Gerhardt, AlphaGraphics CEO Kevin Cushing, and Franchise Services president Rich Lowe.

It remains to be seen if this effort will force HP to make any changes to MarketSplash. Back in 2007, Kodak rolled out a similar deal with its Creative Network, which lasted less than six months before they pulled the plug. The flap over the Kinko’s click-through button on Adobe Acrobat Reader prompted its removal. Will HP scrap MarketSplash? I have my doubts, but there may be some modification to come.

One touch of irony – some MarketSplash orders are routed to Staples, which uses mostly Xerox equipment.

What’s MarketSplash? It’s Hewlett Packard’s Web-to-print service aimed at end users; in other words, aimed at those small businesses who are potential customers for quick printers.

Their website notes: “MarketSplash by HP provides all the small business marketing materials, products, and design services you need in a single, easy-to-use interface. Our brand marketing solution includes award-winning design templates, professional business cards, standout websites, traffic-driven direct mail postcards, and many more marketing products.”

So here we have another case of a printing industry vendor selling directly to potential customers of that industry. Adding insult to injury, some print jobs are routed to Staples for output. Thus far there hasn’t been any great outcry such as that which greeted Adobe’s click-through agreement with Kinko’s. That puzzles me. Maybe folks don’t think this is as big a deal as the Adobe fiasco, but I’d expect at least some protests from within the industry. Stay tuned.

I have to say I was very pleased when the On Demand show moved back to Philadelphia from Boston. Don’t get me wrong, I like Boston just fine, but I prefer Philadelphia for one reason—the Reading Terminal Market is right across the street from the convention center.

While trade shows offer great opportunities to learn about the latest printing technologies, they seldom offer much in the way of decent food. Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds are not my idea of good eats. Neither are gummy pretzels and overpriced pasta.

However, good eats can be found at the Reading Terminal Market which houses some 80 merchants who offer lots of food choices, not to mention specialty groceries, baked goods, and produce. If you’re planning to attend On Demand, check out www.readingterminalmarket.org to see what goodies can be found there when you take a break from the show. Learning is important, but so is eating well.

See you in Philadelphia.

Do you own an iPhone? If so, there’s a cool feature on the Quick Printing website that can keep you connected to all the latest information no matter where you are. On the QP homepage, scroll all the way down to the bottom and you’ll find three buttons. The first one lets you sign up for QP’s RSS news feeds. The second one is +My Yahoo, which lets you add QP to your Yahoo homepage. And the third one is +Add to Google, which adds QP to your Google homepage.

When you land on the QP website, there’s so much to see that you can easily get distracted before you make it all the way to the bottom of the page, so I just thought I’d let you know. Cool, huh?

I’ve heard several printers talk about a scam that’s been making the rounds lately. It has also been a frequent topic of discussion on a couple of print related listservs and chat sites. The thing about scammers is they don’t bother to research the companies they target. I guess that’s how the email wound up in my mailbox.

The email, which also included a PDF attachment titled “20571 LIVING BREAD MINISTRIES,” read:
Good day,
Please i need an estimate on this print work.

Fliers:QTY: 69,000 pieces of 11X17, printed on 70lb Gloss Text printed one side only in 3 colors on ink with the attached artwork, no bindery/folding.Exclude shipping/delivery charges.

Please let me know the quote or any questions, look forward to working with you on this project.

Thank you!
Steve MacDonald

I replied:

Mr. MacDonald,
Thank you for your inquiry. Quick Printing is a business magazine targeted to the owners and managers of quick and small commercial printers. As such, we do not produce printing jobs. Also, as such, we are quite well aware of the shipping scheme represented by your inquiry and the fact that you prey upon our readers. You would do well to fish in other waters.

Even though the email arrived in my Quick Printing mailbox, it appeared to be addressed to inquiries@rushpostcardprinting.com, which by the way, is a legitimate business. And a quick Google search uncovers at least two organizations called Living Bread Ministries. So if unsuspecting printers open this email and do a quick check on the Internet, they would probably be inclined to send the man a quote.

Nonetheless, this is a scam, and here’s how it works. If you quote on the job, you will be awarded the work, no questions asked, no quibbling over price. Everything will appear to be above board. And they will be very eager to pay you right away. You may get one or two phone calls, but the majority of your correspondence will be via email.

The next part may vary slightly, but this is how it most often goes. When the job is ready for pickup, they will send you an email saying that they have experienced a personal emergency and you will be asked to deliver the printing directly to the mission in Africa, or South America, or wherever. This is the whole point of the exercise.

The scammers will use some sort of ruse with either checks or, more often, credit cards so that it looks like the money is coming from them, but they will insist that payment be sent using Western Union — which means cash. Your cash. Naturally, when it all comes out in the wash, their “payment” turns out to be no good and uncollectable, and they will have disappeared into the synapses of the Internet with the money you wired them (usually about $10,000).

I seriously doubt the person posing as “Steve MacDonald” will be intimidated by my email. He probably won’t even finish reading it past the point where I tell him we don’t provide printing. But sometimes you just feel like you have to throw a pebble at the dragon that’s harassing your village. Know what I mean?

I seem to have the same conversation over and over. Someone — usually an outsider or a person who isn’t familiar with our market — will make some dismissive statement about quick printers being too small for their interests. This is my cue to launch into a litany about the wide ranging capabilities and sophisticated services offered by QP’s readers. I explain that our readers may call themselves quick printers, small commercial printers, digital printers, or even marketing specialists. All the labels are self applied anyway, and what they choose to call themselves in no way limits their business. From the magazine’s standpoint, we figure anyone who signs up for a magazine called Quick Printing is probably operating the type of entrepreneurial business model we serve. So there!

Recently, however, I realized that I might need to have that same conversation with myself. While working on a project with NAQP, I was scrolling through a mailing list and recognized the name of a printer that I had seen just a few minutes before in a press release. The company had just installed, not one, but two Xerox iGen4 presses. When I first read the release, I thought, “That’s nice, but this guy is obviously not a quick printer.” Not five minutes later, I ran across his name on the NAQP mailing list.

Just as with people who subscribe to the magazine, I figure that anyone who joins NAQP would fit within our concept of a quick printer. Ergo, the fellow with the pair of iGen4s is a quick printer. Go figure!

This piqued my interest and I started comparing other press releases about installations against the mailing list. In no time at all, I found information about other NAQP members who had installed equipment that I would have considered either borderline applicable or just simply too much for our market. Installations included a Heidelberg CD 74 with a coater, a Heidelberg SM52 with the Anicolor inking system, and a Muller Martini Presto E90 saddle stitcher. Now who’s underestimating quick printers?!

So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go explain to myself just how advanced and sophisticated some of our readers really are. I’ll have my argument all updated and ready to go the next time condescending soul says, “Oh, we just aren’t interested in a bunch of little copy shops.”