It seems every day there’s a new economic challenge facing us in our daily work lives. First it was Covid, followed by job losses, then businesses rebounded, and then we faced labor and paper shortages. Lately it’s been rising costs and just recently our banking system has become less than rock solid. None of us really know for sure how long or how severe a possible recession might last.
On a bright note, let’s look at some effective ways to combat the recession in the areas of shipping, printing and mailing costs in your print marketing program. We’re going to cover two areas that printers and mail service providers can do to recession-proof their business, and in turn, help you recession-proof yours.
In this blog, we’ll focus on how printers can help you contain your print marketing costs by controlling outsourcing costs and keeping a lid on labor costs.
Controlling Outsourcing Costs:
Is your print partner doing everything they can to control additional outsourcing related costs? For example, we produce posters across multiple production platforms based on whether the size is large format of 36” x 48” or small format of 8.5” x 11”. Clients often ask us to laminate one or both sides to extend the life of the poster or to enhance its appearance. Previously, we used a trade shop to laminate for us. We calculated the cost to courier out the printed posters, courier them back to us and the expense we paid the trade shop. We researched the cost to purchase an automatic laminator and determined we would recoup our purchase costs within 12-18 months if we brought that capability inhouse.
Another technique that has historically been outsourced is foil stamping. Our partners at Heidelberg recently suggested we add a cold foil stamping unit on our brand new sheetfed press to eliminate that outsourcing expense and we are now able to produce high end foil stamped printed sheets at a third of the cost and 4 times faster than a separate hot foil stamp method with a trade shop.
The third example is in fulfillment operations. Traditionally, printing companies order boxes for a print job based on the size and volume of the item going into the boxes. However, as we worked with more retail clients who required us to order different size boxes, based on what items were going to which of their stores, we knew we had to do something to reduce the excessive inventory of odd sized boxes that lined the shelves on one entire side of our warehouse. The solution came when we purchased a Pack-Size machine.
An operator keys in the dimensions of the box needed and large stacks of sheeted cardboard are cut down to the size needed, the operator passes it over the gluer to connect the sides of the box and the perfect size box is created instantly. As a result, we can customize boxes for each store location, cutting down on lead time, filler material and shipping expenses!
Mitigating Labor Costs
Is your printer taking advantage of opportunities to cross train employees to be sure your projects are shipped on time and to minimize additional untimely additional labor costs?
With seven production departments in our business, we realized all seven departments were rarely busy at the same time. For example, if we were busy in our print department the first week of the month, invariably the second week our bindery would be slammed because they were working on all the jobs that the print department had worked on in the previous week. To make sure we get our clients’ printed materials out on time we cross train our employees. This allows us to reduce the cost of hiring temps, in turn saving our clients’ money.
In this time of rising costs, we aim to do everything we can to support our clients’ print marketing goals in a cost-effective manner. If you find that your current printer isn’t taking advantage of these methods, give us a call. We’d love the opportunity to see if we can help you recession-proof your business!
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