So, almost against all odds, here we are in 2022. It’s hard not to get the sense that, like Groundhog Day, this is our third attempt at starting 2020, building on the successes of 2019 before things went south, pre-empting our regularly scheduled programming for the past two years. I’m hesitant to say “as we emerge from the pandemic,” because we have yet to emerge from the pandemic. But as we head into the new year, here are some of the topics I have been following as they relate to wide-format printing—and, specifically, the market for wide-format printing. 

The market for print and related materials is affected by nothing so much as prevailing economic conditions, as many of us remember from the Great Recession of 2008 and, more recently, the COVID Crash of 2020. The good news is that the economy has been pretty strong, all things considered. GDP growth in the quarters following the COVID Crash has been strong and unemployment has been low (although the labor force participation rate is a bit worrying). The big concern is inflation, but some economists believe that the spikes we have been seeing are temporary, due to supply chain and staffing problems driving up prices. (You have probably experienced price increases in consumables and other materials.)

In October, the International Sign Association (ISA) released its Q3 Sign Industry Quarterly Economic Report(and held its quarterly webinar) and the analysts at IHS Markit expect that the supply chain issues that have been plaguing virtually every sector to start to clear up as we head into 2022. They also expect prices to come down, remarking, “Paper and packaging prices are set to decrease in late 2021 and through 2022 as input costs fall”; “Globally, steel production is fully recovered and exceeds pre-COVID-19 output, allowing inventories to near being fully restocked. It is still going to get worse before it gets better, but price relief will come by late 2021 or early 2022.”