custom printing jobs are routine for Copy Craft Printers

Emily Brackett with Visible Logic recently wrote a great a blog article discussing the pros and cons of online printing. Two of the cons she points out, lack of paper options and limited sizes, add up to the fact that many online printing companies don’t do custom very well. While many online printers are able to  provide dirt-cheap pricing on the “everyday” items like postcards, business cards and brochures, due to their workflow and lack of customer service they simply aren’t setup to handle anything outside the norm. Often this leads print buyers to seek out a local printer or a specialty company to handle any custom print needs they have. Using the services of a local or specialty company often means paying more than than budgeted, altering the artwork so it fits into a standard product or altogether canceling the job.

Copy Craft offers the normal products and great pricing like all the other online printing companies but we also understand not every job fits into a nice little category. We know our client base would much rather use a printer they know and trust for all their printing needs, be them standard or custom. Knowing and understanding these two things has allowed us to build a workflow which allows us to produce any type of job our customers bring to us.

A perfect example of our custom abilities in on a job we recently printed for United Supermarkets to use in their Amigo stores.

United Supermarkets needed to produce a new set of P.O.S display tags. They needed these tags to be very visible and draw their customers attention to a new product offering, a sale item or a promotional item. They decided they wanted to go with bright neon colors with a starburst shape. When they approached us with the specs we didn’t have to think about if we could do it or how we were going to do it… we knew we could do it and exactly how we were going to do it.

Our press capabilities allowed us to ink up the press with all 5 Pantone colors at produce the job in one press pass. As you can see from the pictures below the result of the printing was clear and vibrant.

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The sheets are now die-cutting and will soon be ready to deliver to what we know will be another happy customer.

For your next custom printing project don’t waste time looking around. Trust us!

Early Sunday morning we went live with some new features we have had in development. The new features include:

• header:
  • new tagline image
  • new live chat button
  • new phone number image
• navigation bar:
  • new navigation bar design and layout
  • links on the left side are now information oriented links and now have drop down menus (where applicable) added blog link to main navigation
  • links on the right side are all support oriented links
• left sidebar:
  • “other products” link is now expandable – will continue to add links to this area as we add more products
  • moved sample request, custom quote request, email us links to the “about us” link in main navigation
• right sidebar:
  • added videos section
  • added rotating customer testimonials
• site wide:
  • fixed some minor coding issues which effected Internet Explorer and FireFox users on Windows platforms.

We hope the new site design and navigation enhance your browsing experience with us. We have tested the new site design with the  majority of modern web browsers and everything appears working normally,  should you experience any issues please email us – webmaster@copycraft.com or leave a comment below. When reporting issues please let us know the exact issue you are having and which internet browser and operating system you are using.

On July, 9 2009 we went live with our support center. You can access the support center by clicking on the support center button located in the upper right corner of any page at www.copycraft.com.

The support center provides:

• A pre-flight check list to quickly provide information on basic file setup and preparation for print production.
• A comprehensive file setup guideline which covers a topics such as; bleed, color, resolution… etc.
• Tips on successfully submitting files through email, web and FTP.
• Instructions on using our online storefront to place orders.

We hope you this information assists you when working with Copy Craft on any of your print needs. If there any topics or information not covered within our support center you think others would find beneficial, please contact your sales representative and let them know.

shopping around for a commercial printer can be exhausting

In today’s economy it is more important than ever to be meticulous with every dollar in your printing and advertising budget. To help stretch their budgets, rather than selecting one commercial printer to handle all their print needs, many companies have made it common practice to shop around for the best price or deal. What many companies fail to realize is they might (in the long run) be losing valuable time, sacrificing on quality and ultimately costing themselves money when implementing a “shop around” strategy.

You might be asking yourself, “if it the best deal how can it cost me more than if I stayed with a single printer?”

Shopping around requires time. Time to find different print companies capable of handling your print need, time sending out quote requests to those companies, time explaining you needs/expectations, time waiting on quotes and after the quotes are received it takes time to decide on which printer to use. The time spent shopping around is time lost. It is time you could have used to move onto another project, time spent modifying, perfecting and finalizing a current project or even time which could be spent away from work.

When you shop around you are forfeiting consistency of products from one to another. While most printers do their best to match to any pre-existing printed pieces it is virtually impossible for one printer to replicate another printer. Imagine having business cards, letterhead, envelopes and other marketing assets which don’t match. What does this say about your company and how does it effect your brand? Beyond consistency it is important to remember that not all printers are created equal. Copy Craft runs high definition 300 line screen waterless printing. Our quality is the highest you can achieve in the industry. Selecting another ( because they have a better price) printer which doesn’t print to this standard could leave your pieces not meeting your exceptions. Beyond consistency of product quality, it is important to consider consistency in service quality. In establishing a relationship with a printer, that printer is more apt to meet your demands and exceptions.

It should be apparent that losing time and sacrificing quality are two risks you take when shopping around but how can it cost you money?

Simple!

1. Time = Money

2. Subpar quality leads to reprints or even worse, lost sales.

Before shopping around speak with your printer and find out if they have any discounts available or are running any promotions. If they aren’t able to provide you with a discount or promotion, if you simply let them know you are wanting to keep the business with them but have a budget to work with they will do what it takes to work within your budget.

If your printer can’t meet your budget and your are forced to shop around, it is important to provide as much detail and clearly explain your needs and expectations to potential printers. Doing so should help alleviate any potential issues which could arise when working with a new printer.