If you’ve been reading along over the last three weeks, we started out this five-part series talking about guiding principles that are helpful in modernizing your print business’ front office. In week two, we covered two really important data objects that your business needs to manage well: prospects and customers. Last week, we covered the primary revenue object—the order. This week, we’re going to talk about a very print-specific aspect of business: the artwork and the need to get agreement or approval from the customer prior to the manufacturing process. 

I get a chance to speak with general ecommerce experts: consultants and developers, even some founders of large-scale ecommerce technology companies like Shopify. They all ask me the same question: why can’t printers just use generic ecommerce solutions? Platforms like Shopify sell a large variety of products and services. What makes print weird? My go-to answer is always:

“A print ecommerce transaction requires that the customer provide a critical part of the custom manufacturing process during the transaction.”