Sunday, June 2, 2013

10 Tips To Finding The Best Online Color Printing Service

Buying color printing wholesale online can save your business lots of money that you can put to other uses. Online color printing services that provide the highest quality, fast service and wholesale prices are quickly replacing traditional small local printers that don't offer easy to use convenient online services. The number of savvy business owners that trust and buy their advertising, sales and marketing tools from wholesale online printing services is growing fast and will continue to grow as more and more people realize the convenience and continue to buy online.

Many small local printing companies produce excellent quality work on easy one and two color simple jobs. Neighborhood printing services often buy your color printing job online, then mark it up 100% or more and resell it to you. Since you can't throw darts at your monitor, with so many online printing services it can be hard to pick the right one. Here are some tips to save you time and money.

The lowest price is tempting but not always the best decision unless all you are looking for is the lowest price and you don't care about anything else. A better decision may be to compare value between online printing services. Use these factors to judge value.

1. Paperweight is important. Printing is not only visual, it is also tactile. No matter how strong the design and call to action is if the paper feels thin and cheap, you have defeated your purpose. You may save money but you could lose interest and respect due to lack of quality. For the best feel, use 100 Lb gloss book or cover weight for flyers, brochures and booklets and 14 or 16 Pt. gloss coated stock for cards. These stocks are perceived as the best weight for most jobs.

2. Paper brightness affects the quality of the printing. Coated papers come in 5 grades. 1 being super premium smooth bright white and 5, which is dull and has visible ground wood. Brightness is measured by the papers ability to reflect light. Paper grades 2 and 3 have brightness in the 90% range and are the best balance between price, quality and value. Be sure to ask the paper grade your job will be printed on.
3. UV or aqueous gloss finish coatings are an important value that should be included in the price. These coatings enhance the color and protect your job from scuffing and scratching. If your printing service can't put aqueous coating on your job that indicates they are using an older and/or a cheaper press that does not have the features of newer presses. Result is your job may not print as well.

4. Free file checks should be available on every job. Customers often make errors in their files that may not be seen until the job is delivered. Make sure your printer checks your files for printing errors. DO NOT expect the printer to check errors in your copy. Over the years I seen hundreds of job printed with the wrong address and or phone numbers. This is your responsibility. That said, if your printing service notices something that may be an error, you should be notified. It's just the right thing to do. The bottom line is your printing service is not responsible for your errors.

5. Free online digital proofs should be provided. This gives you, the customer, one last chance to find errors before changes become costly. If an online printing service charges, even $5 for proofs, you should find another one. Free digital proofs for final approval should be included in the job price.

6. Your printer should have the ability to add special features. You can often get a good idea of value from a printing service that offers lots of options such as WOW Factors to your job. Spot UV coating, metallic ink, color metallic effects, foil, waterproof EndurAce paper, plastic cards and silk cards are just a few of the options available. If your online printer offers these services, you can be sure they have the latest state of the art print technology to enhance your job.

7. Easy to use free templates offered. Templates with crop marks, safety zones, and bleeds (when color goes to the trim line) are extremely useful and should be available for all product sizes.

8. Check out your printer's customer service. Personal contact before your first job is very important. Ask questions to see what kind of response you get. Do they answer the phone quickly? Is the sales rep professional and knowledgeable? Does he or she know their products and services? Can they meet any special needs? How fast do they get back to you? You may want to ask a question that requires a call back. That can give you an idea of the kind of personal service they offer. Ask the rep if they will be your personal contact or if every time you call you get someone else.

9. Ask for free samples or fill out a sample request form on their site. You can expect they will send only their best work. Quality can always be tested by seeing their work. Do the samples arrive in a timely manner? What kind of guarantee do they give?

10. Is your online printer's site user friendly? Can you easily find what you are looking for and get prices in one click. Is the order form easy to use?

If you follow these 10 steps and you should be able to find an online color printing service that meet or exceeds your expectations. Finding quality, service as well as price is not difficult if you know what to look for.
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If not now when is is the time to take the challenge tat could put your business on a new road to success. It costs nothing more than a few minutes to see how affordable and easy using a personal online color printing service is. Make your business stand out as a leader in your field. See all the useful custom printed marketing tools that will make your business grow.

For low prices from the best value online full color business printing service go to: http://www.colorprintingpros.com.