Businesses often rely on internal solutions to fulfill their commercial printing needs. Especially in the early days of a business, using in-house printers and copiers to produce materials may seem like a viable solution. However, as a company grows, it usually gets much harder to deal with print runs that can grow into hundreds, thousands, or even millions of items.
Moving to a commercial printing services provider can sound like a dramatic leap. However, working with a commercial printing company may end up reducing the time, money, and pain that goes into doing the work on your own. Take a look at four signs it might be time to move to a commercial printer.
Scale
If your operation has reached the point that scaling up printed work is becoming difficult or impossible, it's time to talk about commercial printing options. Even something as seemingly simple as label printing can get tough when you're trying to produce thousands of high-quality items. Commercial firms have access to supplies at lower costs because they benefit from economies of scale. Likewise, they can afford equipment that's able to handle many print runs without breaking.
Time Consumption
Unless your organization is big enough to support an in-house printing operation, the odds are high that you're asking people to do things outside of their job descriptions just to handle printing needs. This reduces their ability to do their actual jobs, and it drives a sense of frustration with the business.
Don't assume a lack of grumbling means everyone is okay with being the printing department at your organization. Some folks may be soldiering through even though they'd prefer to focus on their jobs. You won't hear a lot of objections to adopting commercial printing services once things get to this point.
Storage Space
Until you've bought sufficient amounts of paper to do thousands of items, it's hard to imagine how much storage space is necessary. You'll start keeping track of ink and toner, too. Likewise, you'll start using more equipment. Eventually, you'll either steal space from other parts of your location or just clutter the main areas with printing and copying hardware. If your place of business doesn't look presentable because of the printing equipment, it's time to talk with a commercial printing company.
Capabilities
Top-tier printing capabilities generally exceed what you can do with equipment from even the best office supply companies. If you need full-bleed ink printing and binding for a project, for example, that's work that only professionals tackle.
Share30 July 2021
When you start shopping for a new printer, they all look the same. However, after you pick one and take it home, another story unfolds. I still remember the day I found what I thought was a great device, only to deal with jammed paper and malfunctioning print heads later. I have been working with printers for the past fifteen years, and I know how to shop for printers and care for them. On my blog, you will find everything you need to know about printing and shopping for devices, so that you can avoid undue hassles of your own.