Digital Printing

Recent developments in technology is giving small business more options. Traditionally, printing labels was a limiting factor to launching your own brand or product. In order to obtain a "shiny" label that looked professional you would have to spend $500-800 dollars and order a minimum quantity in the thousands to make it cost effective. However, with digital printing this does not have to be the case.

I am not talking about printing them yourself at home but the fact that more and more printing companies have digital presses. By combining the digital technology with some of the traditional techniques the finished label is very comparable to what consumers expect from a label. Namely, the labels can be made with that shiny coating and professional die cut. With no plate charges, the limiting factor is the artwork charge. As with any printing company, the artwork charges depends on what you supply them. If you give them clean artwork your charges will be minimal. You can then print 1, 100, 1000, 10000 labels.

Here is an example from the natural products industry. I want to launch my in-house brand of Milled Flaxseed granules. I have a supplier who will supply me 500 bags without label.

Option #1 - Flexo Printing:
Artwork charges $135
Prepress plates $245
Printing 2000 labels $145
Total $525

- with Flexo you need to do a minimum of 2000-3000 depending on your printer. $0.26 per label but I will have 750 extra labels.

Option #2
Artwork charges $135
Printing $125
Total $261

- with digital I can order 500 labels only. $0.52 per label but my initial investment is half.

Another benefit to digital is that I can combine product labels in one run as long as they are the same size label. Imagine that I wish to have 3-4 products under my private label. This is all possible. I will also be able to print the batch and lot number on the label each time I print. No more hot stamping.

So as you can tell I am excited by the opportunity that digital printing technology presents my company. Now it will be up to me to figure out some clever ways to use it to my advantage.