“Package Prototyping: When Mockery Is Acceptable”: Should you get involved in the package prototyping business, the short-run packaging business?

There’s a really excellent article, up this morning, on www.myprintresource.com – about package prototyping - and the opportunity to generate sales from companies that create packaging for their products and from companies who have short-run packaging needs.

The other day on Reprographics 101, we did a post about a software program that enables people with flat-bed cutters to manufacture boxes and other packaging for the finished-prints they produce. The article, below, gets into detail about the opportunities available to those who decide that “packaging” is a business they should be in.

I read Mark Vruno’s article (see below), and while I may not agree with him that the opportunity to generate sales from providing package-prototyping services is significant (wide-format ink-jet printing equipment is now so cheap that most packaging companies have, or can easily acquire, their own wide-format ink-jet printers), I do think there’s an opportunity for Reprographers in the “short-run” custom-packaging production space. Reprographers, you’ll need to have, in addition to wide-format printing equipment, a flat-bed cutting system to get involved in short-run customer-packaging production.

The other day on this blog, we mentioned flat-bed cutting equipment from Zund (www.zund.com). In Mark’s article he mentions flat-bed cutting systems from Esko (www.esko.com).

Below, I’ve reprinted the title and first three paragraphs of Mark’s article. Reprographers, I’d encourage you to read this article; it contains interesting food for thought.

“Package Prototyping: When Mockery Is Acceptable”

BY MARK VRUNO

Every print firm looking to increase sales in 2012 has his or her fingers on the pulses of two growing revenue streams: wide-format and packaging. Which is why using wide-format digital output devices to prototype, proof, and print packaging on demand may...

Since retailers cannot “digitize” packages on store shelves, industry watchers like to point out, the e-threat to package printers isn’t the same as converting printed pages into PDFs. Every print firm looking to increase sales in 2012 has his or her fingers on the pulses of two growing revenue streams: wide-format and packaging. Which is why using wide-format digital output devices to prototype, proof, and print packaging on demand may be the ideal specialty blend for profits this year.

Total output product value for packaging is in the range of $290 billion worldwide, according to I.T. Strategies. Affordable print technology and market need have combined to bring the promise of double digit growth to the digital packaging market. InfoTrends projected that digital packaging will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 15 percent between 2009 and 2014. While folding cartons and flexible packaging represent a relatively small base, revenues will show CAGRs of over 23 percent and nearly 20 percent, respectively.

Okay, here’s a link that will take you to the complete article that Mark wrote:

http://www.myprintresource.com/article/10453833/package-prototyping-when-mockery-is-acceptable