March 13, 2003 -- Recently, we asked print customers about their role in specifying paper for their jobs. Paper is an important part of any print job because of the impact on look and feel, as well as the costs. The research indicated that roughly 60% of print customers usually or always specify the paper for their print jobs. Only 18.2% of respondents seldom or never specify the paper. Many of the print customers that seldom or never specify the paper for their jobs are companies with small print budgets (under $50,000 per year). These print customers may not have the expertise or special requirements for paper that are more commonly found with companies that have larger annual budgets.  While it may seem strange that print customers do not specify the type of paper for a print job, many times print customers have repeat jobs or jobs that are very similar. In these cases they may use a standard type of paper (e.g. “house” grade) or simply indicate that the job should be run on the same type of paper as an earlier run. Of those print customers that do specify paper, the most common attributes they specify include the grade, weight and color. Over 75% of these print customers stated they usually or always specify these attributes. Only 55% to 60% of these print customers indicated they usually or always specify other factors such as coating, surface texture and brightness. Print customers do have some influence on the brand of paper with 37% indicating they usually or always specify brand. However, this decision appears to be primarily in the hands of the print provider. The most influential sources affecting what type of paper a print customer specifies are personal experience and the print provider’s recommendations. Over 60% of print customers indicated they rely on these sources for information about paper. There is not a significant difference in sources for information on paper based on the annual print budget of print customers. Print customers also indicated they generally do not rely on other sources such as paper merchants, paper manufacturers, printing equipment manufacturers and publications to provide information on what types of paper to specify. The research suggests that paper manufacturers and merchants need to continue their marketing activities with print buyers and print providers. The focus with print buyers should be on the brand as it relates to key product attributes (grade, weight, color). Sample packs and other incentives for trying new brands and other methods for raising brand awareness could be very useful. Many print customers may not realize that their print providers can easily get a specific brand of a grade of paper, even if it is not the house brand. Paper manufacturers and distributors need to continually market to print providers as well. The print provider is often the primary source for information and can have a strong influence on which grade, weight, color and brand of paper is used. Print providers can often upsell a print customer to a premium grade or easily move them to another brand that they may have in stock or are familiar with. The last area the research looked into was on potential paper problems print customers may have when running digital color jobs. In general, print customers reported having relatively minor paper problems. Only 15% to 20% of the respondents reported having problems that precluded running a job on a digital color printer. The most commonly cited problem (22% indicating it often prohibits running the job) was the “price or cost of paper is much higher than comparable offset grades”. However, even this percentage was relatively low and not much higher than other technical factors such as cracking of toner when folding and ability to print on heavy weight or glossy stocks. All the research CAP Ventures has done relative to digital color printing continually indicates that print quality and appearance of the final document are not inhibitors to printing jobs digitally. The primary inhibitor to printing more jobs on digital color printers and presses remains the cost per page.