90% Of Printers Expect 2005 To Be Better Than 2004

2005 will be a good year for commercial printers, according to newly-released research.

2005 will be a good year for commercial printers, according to newly-released research.

Trendwatch Graphic Arts (TWGA) has published its annual forecast report for the commercial printing marketplace.

In the report, TWGA indicates that expectations from within the graphic arts community are strong that 2005 will be a good year for commercial printers.

According to the report, 90 per cent of respondents expect 2005 to be as good as or better than 2004.

Accordingly, that optimism was expected to translate to increased sales of printing presses.

The report cited planned investment in six-colour sheetfed offset presses to jump six per cent (up from three per cent to nine per cent) and direct-to-press (I.e.

QM-DI) offerings to rise to four per cent (from two per cent last year).

Demand for heatset presses was also expected to rise from one per cent to three per cent.

According to the report, as business has improved, printers have been increasingly realising 'adding printing capabilities' as a sales opportunity - both in terms of adding additional presses to handle more work and in printing capabilities they do not already possess.

As a result, planned investment in smaller items was down almost universally as printers investigated the notion of buying big-ticket items.

As they got swept up in what the report described as the euphoria of increased work, they were turning away from value-added services that they have been pursuing during the downtimes.

TWGA continued to comment that such a move might be a mistake as there was an increasing emphasis on non-print media which would have profound long-term consequences for the printing industry.

Quick printers had become one of the healthiest of the printing markets and it happened largely by embracing value-added services, as well as new technologies such as digital printing, colour copying, and non-print services such as cross-media services commented the report.

That was no easy feat when considering that their competition was not just from other quick printers but also from places such as Staples, The UPS Store, and other retail stores that never would have been considered print providers in the past.

According to the report, quick printers were most likely to value making web sites more interactive as an opportunity (37 per cent, up from 26 per cent).

They were also more likely to consider broadening digital colour variable printing jobs as an opportunity (34 per cent, up from 22 per dent).

In the arena of variable print work, About 13 per cent of all print and pre-press firms have worked on targeted print jobs that incorporate variable-image, variable-text information.

Interestingly, printers said they worked on the archetypal variable-data printing job much less often than do design and production firms.

The report went on to say that two of the critical concerns for publishers were paper prices (at 69 per cent, the highest that aspect had ever has ever ranked) and printing costs (at 63 per cent, also the highest point for that feature).

The full report, 'Printing Forecast 2005: The Trendwatch Graphic Arts Perspective on the Challenges and Opportunities for Printing Firms in the Next 12 Months and Beyond," is available for online from TWGA.

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