A reason to celebrate: Onlineprinters welcomes its 600,000th customer
Congratulations from technology partner Heidelberger
Onlineprinters starts the new year with news of success: Having expanded its clientele by 100,000 new customers in 2016, the company welcomed its 600,000th client in January 2017. "Last year, we defended our position as one of the market leaders in the European online printing sector, producing more than 2.1 billion printed products shipped to over 30 countries," says Dr. Michael Fries, CEO of Onlineprinters. Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, congratulated him on achieving this milestone. The manufacturer of offset printing presses is a long-term technology partner of Onlineprinters. Onlineprinters GmbH is the biggest print shop in Europe to process 3b sheet sizes. In the offset printing department, the company uses only printing presses from Heidelberger for its successful business model. For its in-house digital printing and LFP operations, the provider of online print services relies on technology made by HP and Durst.
One-stop shopping experience: Around 80 new products
"Having offset printing, digital printing, LFP and processing under one roof allows us to introduce new products and services promptly when our customers want them," Fries emphasises and says that this allows his company to respond easily to market needs and win new customers.
In 2016, Onlineprinters added almost 80 new items to its range of products. "This has taken us another big step closer to our goal of offering a one-stop shopping experience to our customers," CEO Fries explains the corporate strategy. Onlineprinters is the only major European print shop to offer self-adhesive labels on rolls with optional same-day production. Moreover, new formats were introduced for various products. Brochures are now available in the handy 17 x 24 cm pocket format, business cards can now be ordered in 5 x 5 cm square size. Personalisable advertising tools include two ballpoint pen designs, sticky notes in various sizes and shapes with and without die punching. Since December 2016, customers have also been able to purchase exclusive letterpress-printed business cards.
More service for existing products
Also the service was further upgraded. "Labels on rolls are a good example of our ongoing efforts to improve our service. By investing into new technology, we have slashed production times by several days for this product," CEO Fries explains. The trend towards smaller print runs requires an increasing number of printed products to be available more quickly, because they are ordered on shorter notice. Onlineprinters has catered to this trend by expanding the same-day print option to standard folders and folders with matt lamination. This means that the folders are produced on the same day the order is received. Writing pads are another example of shorter delivery times.
Global expansion course is continued
After taking the two new investors Bregal Unternehmerkapital and Project A Ventures on board, the company's 2017 objectives include two-digit sales growth, profitability increase and the addition of new products. Dr. Michael Fries announces: "We will continue to push our international growth efforts. In January, our Czech web shop went online. 2017 will see even more activities to this end. We are already operating web shops in ten languages. We are now realising more than half of our turnover abroad; this trend will become stronger in the next years."