According to Marco Boer of IT Strategies, the pandemic is accelerating the decline of offset presses for two main reasons. First, many paper mills are closing - temporarily or permanently, causing the economies of scale for paper production to be lost. Secondly, labor problems, “You can’t find labor, you can’t afford it, and right now, you don’t want a lot of it anyway. That will further accelerate the decline in offset. Already, the mid-range shops are using this time to get rid of their offset presses.”
A higher cost of paper and a shortage of labor also impacts the production of direct mail because producing hundreds of thousands of pieces of direct mail with only a 1%-2% response rate is no longer acceptable. Direct mail content needs to be targeted more effectively and more efficiently made, which makes a short-run envelope press just the ticket.
Cost
The number one benefit of switching from offset to inkjet is the price - low-cost inkjet printers help businesses raise profit margins. The price of your consumables (ink and printhead) is much lower with inkjet printers.
Running an offset press is both labor intensive and supply intensive. Offset printing is great if you're running 3,000-10,000 of something, but where they fall short is in short-run printing. If you're doing short-run envelope print jobs, say 500 or 1,000 of something, the labor and the hassle of resetting the offset press tends to overtake the value.
Labor
Unlike offset printing, short-run envelope printers are ideal for lower volume runs. They print quickly, but the true value here is the ability to switch from run to run. With the iJetColor Press, all users need to do is load the design, load the envelopes, and hit go.
Any staff member, from a press operator to the receptionist (even the owner 😉), can load stock and run the iJetColor press due to its simple configuration and easy-to-use interface, which gives you flexibility with various staff members to easily be able to fill in.
It's a good time to make the transition to inkjet so that you can improve your business processes and your profits.
If you’re ready to make the switch from offset to inkjet, contact us at sales@ijetcolor.com!
