Web-to-Print Flexibility
Web-to-Print Flexibility Case Study
Thompson Print & Mailing Solutions: Expanding into Web-to-Print
When a family-run company with a 50-year legacy in traditional paper printing decides to offer tech solutions to its customers such as web-to-print and online design, a successful transition is no sure thing.
Thompson Print & Mailing Solutions (TPMS) is a San Antonio-based printing company with a wide variety of service offerings including commercial printing, large format, digital printing, business checks and a mailing house. TPMS responded to customer demand for web services in 2007 with an in-house networked order management system powered by Demand Bridge. However, as developing custom client websites, expanding e-commerce offerings, and looking for additional niche marketing opportunities became essential, a more modular solution was needed, particularly a front-end HTML5 editor where clients could build their own products dynamically. This would hopefully reduce both proofing and in-house design time for small print collateral.
Customers wanted small, personalized sites that would let them order everything from two-color business cards to large signs online, with templates, previews, and online approvals. Simultaneously, TPMS was expanding its e-commerce offerings via Superstore Printing (superstoreprinting.com), a website that is set to launch in Fall 2015. The forthcoming client sites and e-commerce site would both need to be mobile-accessible, with a simple interface, and crucially, affordable. The TPMS web team researched and tested more than a dozen providers before settling on Racad Tech and their suite of web-to-print applications.
“Online print ordering is a growing segment, more than 4% per year. Our clients were asking for online solutions to order and print products at their convenience. Our clients have been happy with our Racad Tech-powered solutions on their branded microsites. Therefore, it was easy to make the decision to utilize uDraw for our upcoming e-commerce site,” says David Thompson, president of Thompson Print & Mailing Solutions.
Flexible Solutions
Racad Tech’s wide range of products and services enabled TPMS to cover many bases, from creating a template-driven, strict brand site for a B2B customer, to creating a complex CMS or bootstrap site for a public-facing site.
Racad Tech focuses on best web practices and HTML5, abandoning Flash in the uDraw plugin. This set Thompson Print & Mailing Solutions up to be future-proof and mobile-first, two of their primary goals. Racad Tech’s reasonable price points, patient instructors, dedicated support teams and communicative management made the integration process easy. It was a welcome change from the “fit in our box” mentality TPMS had encountered with previous vendors in the print space.
Easy Integration, Portability
TPMS has a small web team. They were able to bring all their important websites under one roof and manage a number of CMS platforms and customer needs in just a few short months. This is due in large part to the seamless cross-platform integration of multiple Racad Tech products, considerably reducing the time and communications required to work with multiple vendors. One vendor, multiple products, and one training/support team reduces build time.
The web team was able to build sites the way they wanted. This flexibility allowed the team to design seamless order portals for client websites, and gave them complete control over the structure and design of Superstore Printing. The uDraw plug-in gives the site an online editor independent of the product information and order history. The team is free to build every desired site feature without being constrained by a proprietary turnkey solution. Order history and customer information are the property of the site owner, separate from the web-to-print system.
Thompson Print & Mailing Solutions expects expansive customer acquisition and additional online revenue streams in the last quarter of 2015 and into 2016. The groundwork has been done and Racad Tech is a solid partner. The entire Thompson Print & Mailing Solutions team looks forward to innovating well into the future.
