对几个在线印刷网站的点评

建议转入行业版

建筑工程公司比较需要大量的印制品
如果能作进这个行会有比较稳定的市场。。
标书的外封如果漂亮了也会很有面子。

对在线印刷网站开发感兴趣的高手，请把我加为好友~

呵呵不容易这样网站看到这样文章不容易

呵呵，确实如此，这个也是网络印刷尚未大规模普及的原因，因为这种东西，如果不能个性化需求的话，就只能做中低端的产品，做做日历和简单画册。

不过其实只要能够抓住中端客户，也就够了，毕竟中端客户的市场是最大的。龙樱和印客在提供印刷服务的多样性和深入性上，只要能再改进，应该都是很有前途的。

还没有尝试过在线印刷呢,以后有需要的话尝试一下

要说到这个,怎么可能少的了FedEx Kinko呢?现在Adobe Reader里面都已经集成了到Kinko打印.

Some See Opportunity
In the New Paper Trail
By PUI-WING TAM
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal.

From The Wall Street Journal Online


For Sharon Katz, producing fliers and postcards for her company used to be a time-consuming and complex job. First she had to bat around ideas with a designer and sort through the finished proposals. After that came another round of discussions with her printing company.

Then Ms. Katz discovered VistaPrint Ltd., an online printing company that allows consumers to design and print everything from business cards to brochures through the Internet.

These days, she can create marketing materials herself within minutes: She chooses a template for the document on VistaPrint's Web site, plugs in her own artwork and text, then clicks to place the order. Within three business days, she says, VistaPrint sends the completed job -- usually several hundred pieces or so -- right to her office.

"I'm a one-person marketing department, so I don't have the resources or money" to deal with complicated printing processes, says Ms. Katz, director of marketing at Mt. Vernon Mortgage Corp. in Weymouth, Mass. "Now I can place a print order in under 10 minutes, and I don't have to deal with other printers and designers."

Printing has long been a fragmented process, requiring customers to shuttle back and forth between independent designers and print shops to get the job done. Now a growing number of businesses and consumers are turning to online printers as a one-stop shop -- where they can easily design and order everything from annual reports to letterhead stationery. And thanks to low overhead and new technology, the online printers can offer lower prices and quicker turnaround times than traditional outfits.

The surging interest in e-printers is roiling the $126 billion U.S. printing industry. According to research firm InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, print jobs that move through the Internet made up 12.5% of the total U.S. printing market last year. Charlie Corr, a group director at InfoTrends, projects e-printing will grow at a rate of 19% a year through 2010.

Robert Keane, VistaPrint's chief executive, says the Bermuda-based company generates about $30 million in revenue a quarter. The company went public in late September -- underwritten by investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. -- and has seen its stock price more than double from the offering price of $12.

Its competitors are also posting strong numbers. Privately held Mimeo Inc., based in New York, says it generated $15 million in revenue in 2004, up 70% from 2003. IPrint Systems Inc., Redwood City, Calif., says it has one million customers and its revenue is rising 65% a year, though the private company declined to disclose underlying figures.

Perhaps the best measure of e-printing's success is that traditional printers are taking steps online as well. For instance, FedEx Corp.'s FedEx Kinko's unit now provides online ordering. There are no design services available, as with purely online printers. But you can upload a fully completed document to FedEx Kinko's site and then walk through the entire order process, choosing the type of paper and binding, for example, in a matter of minutes. Customers can arrange for the order to be shipped to their own address or picked up at a FedEx Kinko's store.

"It's a dynamic market, and a lot of local printers are also moving into our direction," acknowledges Letty Swank, iPrint's chief executive.

Times weren't always so rosy for e-printing companies. Online printers flooded the Web during the dot-com boom, and many disappeared during the bust. The market was too crowded for so many competitors to survive, and even the biggest names were scattershot in their marketing: They tried to target businesses of all sizes instead of focusing on the niches that needed them most.

VistaPrint, for instance, was founded in 1999, and raised about $10 million in venture capital. But by late 2000 the money was running out. In early 2001, VistaPrint embarked on a major restructuring, selling off a piece of its business in Europe and laying off 40 of its 60 employees, says Mr. Keane, the chief executive.

Now "it's a much healthier market," InfoTrends' Mr. Corr says. And the companies that survived the shakeout have taken a number of steps to revitalize their business plans. Many e-printing companies have narrowed their focus to concentrate on particular customer segments, such as small to medium-size businesses, that are typically not well-served by commercial printers. VistaPrint and iPrint, for example, target companies with just one or two employees, such as those run by entrepreneurs. Mimeo focuses on midsize to larger businesses.

In addition, many e-printers have improved their software and processes so they are able to aggregate orders -- and use the volume to lower their prices and attract new customers.

At VistaPrint, for instance, the average size of a print order is $30. But VistaPrint's proprietary software automatically adds these tiny orders together to create one giant print run, allowing the company to print many small orders at once for a low cost. Traditional printers typically can print just one job at a time -- resetting the printing press each time for a different job -- for a higher cost.

VistaPrint, which owns production facilities in Windsor, Ontario, and in the Netherlands, usually charges 25% to 50% less for an order than a local printer, says Mr. Keane.

Easy design is also a big selling point for e-printers. VistaPrint, for example, offers thousands of online templates from which customers can choose, to create everything from presentation folders to greeting cards. Each template can be customized with graphics, fonts and colors, among other options.

Mimeo, meanwhile, has created software that can be embedded into a user's Microsoft Word program. So you call up the company's templates in the word processor, plug your own information into them, and then upload them directly to the Mimeo Web site to order prints. IPrint offers similar customization services, and prints on items such as rubber stamps and mugs.

Along with such do-it-yourself offerings, many printers now provide free design services by phone. Many traditional printers don't offer in-house design, forcing their consumers to turn to specialized -- and pricey -- designers.

VistaPrint, for example, says it can design most products with a phone consultation of 30 minutes or less. The VistaPrint designer questions the customer about the product and plugs the answers into a template, which the client can check online in real time.

Some customers have mixed feelings about the service. Jeff Coveney, president of Boston Movie Tours, which takes visitors to spots in Boston where films or TV series were shot, discovered VistaPrint late last year. He says he worked with VistaPrint's designers to come up with a brochure, a free service that would have cost at least several thousand dollars elsewhere. Within a few weeks, VistaPrint sent him 2,000 tailored marketing pieces for less than $500.

Mr. Coveney says that dealing with VistaPrint's designers was very different from dealing with an independent designer, who typically pays more attention and does more customization work. VistaPrint's design "wasn't the quality of an ad agency," he says. "The experience took a little getting used to."

In the end, though, he says he's happy with the work. "I plan to use VistaPrint again in the spring when I'm going to redo a few pieces," says Mr. Coveney. "They served my needs."

http://startup.wsj.com/ideas/services/20060216-tam.html?refresh=on