Printers need to be cautious in this uncertain economic climate as their clients may get scared and cut back. Compelling ideas that generate business will appeal to them. If working with retailers, price competition this holiday season will be relentless. Every retailer will not want to hold any inventory after December 25 because of fear that 2009 will be worse.

Non-retail clients are also looking at their budgets and squeezing the most out of them. Print businesses can be excellent outsourcers that can handle all kinds of fulfillment and management tasks that may disappear if companies cut or reallocate their staffing. It is a critical time for printers to take a hard look at their balance sheets and income statements because print prices will not be improving.

It is a good time to buy a competitor’s book of business as it is probably less reliable now than it was six months ago. Lack of profits of a print business can easily be blamed on rising paper costs, incongruous postal fees and other costs. None of these things can be controlled – only managed and navigated. The largest controllable cost in a printing business is labor and this is determined by the tools and training of those workers, and the capital investments that the business has made.

Tags: Business, economy. print industry

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