Trade printing isn’t the most visible segment of the printing industry, and it doesn’t try to be. But without the essential services that trade printers provide, the industry as a whole wouldn’t be nearly as responsive to the needs of its customers as it is.

As everyone knows, a trade printer is a printing business that sells print and print-related services on a wholesale basis to other businesses (commercial printers) and to individuals (printing brokers) who resell it to their customers. Less well known are how the trade printing model operates in practice and how trade printers have adapted to changes in the broader industry they serve.

To gain that perspective, we posed a series of questions to the heads of four trade printing companies who agreed to share their insights with us. The respondents were John Lompa, owner, Trade Litho Inc., Richmond, Calif.; Raymond J. Caravan, Jr., President / CEO K-B Offset Printing, Inc., State College, Pa.; Bob Gardner, President/General Manager, Western Trade Printing, Fresno, Calif.; and Mike Meshkati, President, SinaLite, Markham, Ont.