Bloomreach offers a suite of products that support personalisation ​in e-commerce​​,​ which Go Inspire will now use to enhance the services it provides its clients. Go Inspire, which mails a total of over 800million printed items, and sends a total of over 1 billion communications each year, will be now able to deliver personalised messages powered by unified customer and product data with speed and scale thanks to AI optimisation. The company says its clients will benefit by getting revenue-driving digital commerce experiences that work across all channels and customer journeys.  

Dimitri Kyrpianou, managing director of Go Inspire CX, said, ‘As a leading data-led marketing company, we are delighted to integrate Bloomreach solutions within our offer to boost our services to customers.  

‘With technology advancing at its current trajectory, it was important that we stayed ahead of the curve and our partnership with Bloomreach enables us to do just that. We are really excited about what this could mean for us and our clients.’

Chris Williams​, Channel Partnerships team lead, UKI & France, ​Bloomreach, said, ‘Bloomreach is thrilled to be collaborating with Go Inspire, a forward-thinking partner with strong roots in data-driven marketing and technology.  

‘We are confident our collaboration will enable Go Inspire to deliver results, by empowering marketing teams with the right strategy, process, and tools to elevate the customer experience​.​’

Go Inspire was bought by Xerox in July 2022.

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The Woking operation specialises in high quality litho and variable personalised digital print and mailing. It runs a five-colour Heidelberg XL 105 and a five-colour Heidelberg XL75 litho presses and two Heidelberg Versafire digital colour presses.

John Heywood, managing director, said, ‘We had a similar machine, but we needed something more reliable, user friendly, versatile, and faster. The Horizon SPF-200L was recommended by a trusted individual who works for another equipment company. We did look at other systems but we liked this one because it proved to be the best on test with the easiest set-up. We particularly liked the fact it was simple to use and produced good quality results.

‘We expect to see improvements in speeds, quality, and reliability. We will be capable of handling more job types, too, while also improving throughput and turnaround times. Hopefully it will help with some with new jobs that we couldn’t handle before but on the whole, we expect it to just deliver an all-round improvement. We expect return on investment in three years.’

The 4500bph Horizon SPF-200L landscape feed bookletmaker combines stitching and folding with the ability to handle sheets up to 640mm in length. JDF-ready, it offers instant set-ups via a large icon-based colour touchscreen for user-friendly operation. The screen can be used for on-the-run fine tune adjustments as well as the storage and recall of up to 200 jobs.

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The investment is to help the company, situated in Newcastle-under-Lyme, UK, extend its services to a B2B customer base through its new brand, Printing X. It has plans to move into a new business park premises soon.

The company is a personalised on-demand B-to-C gift business which was set-up seven years ago by Ravi and his wife, Achala Wannipuge. Initially working from home, they produced phone cases and cushion covers using sublimation printing and a small heat press. Two years later in order to expand its product portfolio, the business invested in its first printer – a MimakiUJF-3042FX flatbed.

The printer is a highly versatile piece of equipment that integrates both print and cut functions. Its seven-colour inkset builds up to five layers while a high-quality resolution of up to 1200dpi makes it ideal for numerous applications including banners, flags, wallpaper, swing POP, and outdoor signage.

Ravi De Silva Lindamoulage, company co-owner, said, ‘The new Mimaki printer will help us to target businesses with large format banners, Sign boards, canvasses, wall murals, and stickers. We offer a very wide range of services such as promotional gifts, engraving, T-shirt printing, workwear, and embroidery. Whatever our customers want we can provide it.

‘The UV inks on the new printer will propel us into the promo and gifting markets. It can print onto any materials and the 5-layer printing will allow us to present really unique creative finishes. When compared to the Roland wide format printers we had, it beats them hands down. We’ll be offering a whole range of services that target the small business community from banners to posters, sign boards, decals, stickers, and promotional items such engraved pins. We’ve also started T-shirt printing, workwear, and embroidery, there’s not that many places that can offer the versatility of services that we can, which also includes in-house design. We really have such a large range so it’s really a case of you name it, we can print it.’

The Printed Gift has a physical shop as well as a production space fulfilling its online ordering, which accounts for 95% of the business. The company has three full time online staff as well as three full time staff working in the store. Seasonal part time staff are also employed over the busy periods that are traditionally Christmas, Valentines, Mothers’, and Fathers’ Days. In addition, the business operates another brand called Ellipse that is dedicated to personal items and engraved jewellery.

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Along with acrylic blocks, the company has a number of mugs, mouse mats, coasters, canvas prints and photo blocks. Now it has been extended to include aprons, snow globes, card packs, phone cases and bespoke journals.

WTTB offers individualised Christmas products such as personalised wrapping paper and advent calendars, but now the range has been expanded to tree ornaments, card packs and baubles.

The company has also launched a dedicated Personalise Me service, where users can get help with everything from design to printing customers’ names on to products.

Louise Stephenson, managing director of WTTB which is now part of Precision Proco Group, said, ‘We are always looking at way of helping our customers grow their businesses and giving them a wider selection of merchandise to offer is a great way to do that, particularly as we head towards the busiest time of year.

‘It’s also a great way for companies wanting to give a personalised gift to their customers to do that in an imaginative and memorable way. This year, with all the challenges businesses have been facing, it’s more important than ever before that everyone maintains customer loyalty and these products are a cost effective way of achieving that.’

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Professional skateboarder Louisa Menke and editor of female and LGBTQ+ skate platform Dolores Magazine Raisa Abal, each created bespoke deck designs to symbolise what skateboarding means to them, alongside documenting their journeys to becoming female skaters as part of a video series.

Taking their personalised artwork including hand painted acrylic canvases and graphic collage art, the print company created the bespoke, one-of-a-kind skateboards that celebrate their creative expression and individuality. The TrueVIS VG3-640 is aimed at sign, graphics and personalisation markets and can be used for a wide range of applications from signage and banners to vehicle graphics, stickers, and labels.

Stephen Davis, EMEA marketing director at Roland DG, said, ‘Skateboarding goes far beyond sport; it has its own culture and community that celebrates creativity, expression and individuality. The TrueVIS VG3-640 is the third generation of the TrueVIS, built upon tried and tested technology, but advanced to enhance print precision.’

Raisa Abal, editor of female and LGBTQ+ skate platform Dolores Magazine said, ‘Working on this campaign has given me the opportunity to chase one of the dreams that every skateboarder in the world has – to design their own board graphic. I wanted to create a design that combined all of the things that matter most to me in my life: family, nature, sisterhood, activism, passion, photography, DIY works, my past, my present, and of course, skateboarding.’

Professional skateboarder Louisa Menke added, ‘When Roland DG asked me to be part of this campaign, I started thinking about what skateboarding means to me and suddenly an ear appeared in my mind. It’s not easy to really listen – for example to how I truly feel, what I really want, what I’m afraid of and why. There’s lots of noise, distractions and many layers but if I keep listening, I’ll keep hearing new things. This was my creative inspiration for my board design with Roland DG. When I’m skateboarding, I’m listening. And when I truly listen, magic happens.’

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The MPX series uses a diamond stylus to inscribe text, graphics and photos on a variety of metals and other materials, including brass, aluminium, acrylic, stainless steel, titanium, gold, silver and platinum, and materials with special surface finish such as hairline, grainy or alumite at ‘high speed and with pin-sharp accuracy’.

Applications for the technology range from personalised items such as gifts and accessories to medical and industrial part marking, such as nameplates and engraving 2D barcodes on medical instruments.

The MPX-90S offers an imprint area of 80 x 80mm and is said to offer simple loading and job repeat, while generating ‘little to no’ metal dust during operation. It ships with Metaza Studio software that handles a range of common image/graphic editing tasks such as removing backgrounds or combining multiple images, as well as supporting illustrations or graphics created in commercial design software.

‘Since the launch of the first MPX model in 2000, we have focused on expanding our desktop product lines like the VersaStudio MPX-90S to appeal to the needs of retailers and businesses looking for profitable new services with limited staff and space, as well as individuals who want to start their businesses from home,’ said Gregory Bilsen, CEO at Roland DG EMEA.

‘The exciting MPX-90S metal printer launched today was developed in line with the growing demand from gift and accessory shops wanting to offer new services with high added value, and individuals looking to start their own personalised services business, with the goal of making Roland’s desktop series of metal imprinters affordable and available in an even more user-friendly manner for everyone.’

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They say it’s the thought that counts when it comes to gifts, but it’s never been easier to turn the thought into physical reality when it comes to personalised products that demonstrate at least some degree of individual consideration. Examples range from coasters, mugs, mouse mats and notebooks to T-shirts, cushions, photo blocks, canvas prints, notebooks and of course the ubiquitous photo book.

From the big name consumer-facing e-commerce sites and eBay shops to smaller and more boutique operations selling via virtual outlets like Etsy or Not On The High Street, there are plenty of sources for consumers or businesses, but all of them need a fulfilment operation. While the big players own or run their own, that leaves a lot of space for the smaller businesses who don’t want to be printers but who do need to partner with one.

And then there’s the direct sales opportunity to work with existing clients, who may have come to you for other things but are open to buying more from a printer they know and trust. This is very much the situation at Fordingbridge Print, located near the picturesque New Forest, where relationships are everything.

The company was established a decade ago, as part of a conscious lifestyle decision by managing director Lorraine Whitburn and production director Andrew Wilson. The pair previously ran a major Agfa dealership, also selling Zünd equipment and print, which gave them useful experience on both sides of the industry, but decided to move out of the city in order to enjoy running a business of a ‘nice’ size.

‘The aim was to run a profitable but enjoyable business,’ explains Ms Whitburn.

This background explains the umbrella business Time2Display, under which Fordingbridge Print sits, alongside X-Consumables, a business consumables supply service and Paper Meadows, which provides wedding and celebration products as well of orders as service for funerals.

As events don’t get much more personal than weddings or funerals, it’s here that a lot of bespoke work is done.

Sales director Nicola Anten comments, ‘We do get pigeonholed, having won a lot of business on the bespoke side, on time-sensitive or labour-intensive work,’ but it’s clearly a successful formula, as the company doesn’t sell online and doesn’t even have a web portal for job submission.

‘We’re not Amazon,’ says Ms Whitburn, ‘We want people to pick up the phone.’ She goes on to add that 95% of deliveries are made by their own driver, who is the face of the company for many customers. It seems very much the antithesis of the automated ‘hands off’ approach often championed these days – ‘we proof everything back, and even correct spelling mistakes,’ says Ms Anten, adding that they will train customers on artwork production and advise on materials and options, encouraging customer visits to see and feel the materials, something particularly relevant for the Paper Meadows brand.

‘There’s nothing we can’t print, we have it all under one roof,’ adds Ms Anten, pointing out that customers typically can’t buy all the things they want online from one supplier anyway. Understanding the deadline-sensitive nature of event-related products, Fordingbridge staff will make calls at weekends if necessary, to ensure that everything arrives in the right place at the right time.

The ‘everything under one roof’ philosophy means that there’s quite a mix of equipment at the Hampshire site. For wide-format work, HP Latex printers are used, though Mr Wilson notes that the company waited for the second generation of these, before replacing its solvent machines.

A 1.6m HP Latex 365 has replaced an earlier 330 model. It’s used to print vinyl banners, papers and floor sticker materials and is complemented by a Seal 600 laminator.

Future plans may include a hybrid or flatbed machine to print directly to rigid media and textile printing via direct to-film technology is also under consideration. From the company’s origins in wide-format work, Mr Wilson says the mix between that and commercial is now around 50:50.

On the smaller format side, there’s a Ricoh Pro 7100 sheetfed toner press with the fifth colour option, mostly used to print white which Mr Wilson says works very well on textured materials and is popular in wedding products. He praises the registration of the press, along with the support, both reactive and proactive, from Ricoh. Complementing this is a Vivid Matrix 530 laminator which handles foil-overtoner work, again popular in wedding items, a Morgana Autocreaser and a Plockmatic booklet-maker, plus a Plockmatic collator feeding a Duplo perfect binder, though the latter is used for pad work rather than books.

The most recent addition is a Veloblade Volta 69+ digital cutter from Vivid, equipped with a tangential head, creaser and drag knives for through- or kiss-cuts. ‘We absolutely love it,’ says Mr Wilson, explaining how it’s been put to work on small cartons and tiny swing tags just 38mm square and needing 4mm holes, that were too small to be handled on the Ideal guillotine.

Personalised or branded items that the company can supply include mugs, pens, lanyards, caps, and T-shirts. A Ricoh desktop printer is used to print dye-sublimation or thermal transfer sheets as appropriate, for use in a dedicated mug press or by transfer via a FreeSub heat press, with further cutting as necessary on a Summa unit. A GCC Spirit laser cutter has also been added to produce more intricate paper products and engraving on wood, another product that has become popular in the weddings side of the business.

On the materials side, brands such as GF Smith and Fedrigoni feature prominently and suppliers ‘who see us as important’, such as Premier Paper, are regarded as valued partners, the latter being willing to bring in samples ‘at the drop of a hat’.

A more narrowly focused business is YoPhoto, an online photo products brand trademarked in 2007 by Tunbridge Wells, Kent-based Copytech, which was one of the first in the photobook sector. Managing director Nick Baldwin says that since then ‘a lot have jumped on the bandwagon but they are more marketeers than printers’, typically selling the product but not producing it themselves. While this does put pressure on his business, it also allows it to differentiate itself via its speed of turnaround. ‘If an order comes in before 12 noon, we can dispatch the same day,’ he says.

While the bulk of the work is photo books for consumers or photographers, YoPhoto also offers children’s books that enable the child’s name and pictures to be incorporated and which carry an ‘eco edge’ message. ‘We offer a zero plastic policy and use FSC-certified and recycled papers,’ notes Mr Baldwin. While he says that these features ‘make people feel good’ he’s not certain that they drive more business, though he notes growing demand for sustainably sourced materials on the corporate side.

The photo books and related items are printed on an SRA3 HP Indigo press chosen for its image quality. The photobook business was originally set up to fill spare capacity on the machine, though Mr Baldwin observes that some consumer customers have also become business ones as the Indigo quality is popular for professional portfolio work. The company plans to upgrade the Indigo in the not too distant future, to reduce operational costs, and is considering acquiring a second digital press as business levels return to pre-pandemic norms. This will probably be a dry toner model, for less quality-critical jobs but also able to handle long-sheet work for dust jackets and the like; items too large for the Indigo are currently produced on Canon ProGraf roll-fed printers.

The photobooks are created using Taopix software supplied by Transeo Media, which is integrated with the YoPhoto website by the company’s in-house developers. Mr Baldwin says the Cloud-based software is very flexible and likes how it integrates into the website behind the scenes.

YoPhoto has standardised on two papers for its photobooks, GenYous uncoated, which is favoured by photographers, and Symbol 3 silk, both supplied by Premier Paper. The Indigo press is profiled for both to achieve optimum results. The light magenta and cyan toners were tested but not felt to yield a sufficient quality improvement to warrant their extra cost, but the EPM (three colour) mode didn’t give the desired depth of blacks, so all work is done in standard CMYK.

On the finishing side, the company is geared up for case-bound books in-house and carries out a lot of hand finishing, which has in the past included foil blocking but Mr Baldwin notes that there has been a longer-term trend away from linen or other textured covers with foiling to more ‘printed’ ones.

While expecting to use silver ink on the company’s next Indigo machine, and interested in the possibilities of metallics on dry toner presses like the Xerox Iridesse or Ricoh Pro C7200, he feels that digital foiling alternatives ‘aren’t quite there yet’

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After undergoing a ‘wide-ranging product review’ Solopress has added new products across its catalogue, as well as updating its promotional product ranges as part of a plan to ‘cement its position as a one-stop shop for mass customisation of on-demand products.’

Prompted in part by a customer survey that the business conducted at the end of 2021, Solopress has now relaunched its printed pen offering, overhauled its range of water bottles and introduced entirely new products such as branded gazebos, printed tablecloths and pop out banners. 

Managing director Simon Cooper said that the water bottles are an example of where a thorough review has led to existing products being replaced by new options that are better aligned to customers’ needs. ‘Water Bottles is a great example where we’ve listened to what our customers have told us and responded accordingly,’ he said. ‘Not only do we now have a more comprehensive range for them to choose from, but we have also been able to lower prices and improve turnaround times.’

Solopress also believes that the introduction of the gazebos, tablecloths and pop out banners shows its commitment to supporting businesses attending trade shows and exhibitions this year. Head of marketing Glen Eckett explained, ‘In our recent survey, businesses told us that they’re hugely enthusiastic about getting back out on the trade show circuit this summer, so we’re delighted to be able to support them with these exciting new products.’

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Printful has revealed that a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) period has helped its gross merchandise value (GMV) reach more than $1 billion and its total number of items printed break the 40 million mark.

Despite the challenged posed by the pandemic, the ecommerce industry’s revenues are still projected to increase to $5.4 trillion in 2022. Printful says that this increasing demand, as well as the popularity of side hustles and social media trends, have been a major driving force behind its growth, which has culminated in the opening of a new British fulfilment centre.

‘Black Friday and Cyber Monday is our busiest time of the year,’ said Printful CEO Davis Siksnans. ‘Each season, our customers—business owners around the globe—start preparing for the holidays earlier than the last. Their 2021 campaigns and efforts have paid off because, during the BFCM weekend alone, they generated more than $13 million in sales. I am proud to announce that, as a result, this has been our biggest peak season yet.’

Printful added more than 70 products to its repertoire during the course of 2021, bringing its total offering to more than 300 items. The company received around 285,000 orders across BFCM 2021, with its most popular products proving to be t-shirts and sweatshirts for the apparel category and mugs and posters for home and living. The largest bulk order received was for 240 hoodies at a total cost of $7380.

Alongside the new Wolverhampton fulfilment site Printful has expanded its presence in Mexico and opened a new facility in Dallas, Texas. These operations, alongside the company’s existing sites, allowed Printful to deliver orders across 132 countries over the course of BFCM.

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The printers are said by UK distributor Hybrid Services, who will ship them in 2022, to deliver ‘significant quality and performance benefits’ that should allow users to offer new applications and increase productivity.

The UJF-7151 plusII has eight printheads, allowing dual CMYK printing at 190% of the speed of the previous model. It also adds new halftoning for sharper edges and finer lines as well as smoother colour reproduction. A six-colour version that adds light cyan and magenta further improves image reproduction, supported by 1800dpi image resolution. A Colour Gloss capability adds a glossy finish to the hardened colour inks for texture and detail treatments without needing a clear vanish channel. Its increased load capacity allows thick or heavy media such as wood, metal and glass in addition to more standard print substrates.

For smaller lighter objects, the UJF-MkII e series comprises the 3042MkII e and Ex e models, which offer a print area of 300 x 420mm, and the 6042MkII e, which goes up to 610 x 420mm. All three also use new image processing technology plus an improved gap sensor to avoid printhead collisions, even with transparent media, and will print to a wide range of hard and soft media. 

All of the new printers support Mimaki Device Language commands for automation purposes and are driven by RasterLink 7 Rip software. The UV inks used are all Greenguard Gold certified.

‘These new models deliver the cutting-edge technology required by businesses to grow and diversify their product offering, as well as creating opportunities for companies to both explore and expand into new market sectors,’ commented Hybrid’s head of Marketing & Business Development, Duncan Jefferies. 

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