First, let’s begin by defining value-added services. “Value-added” in this context does not refer to intangibles like good customer service or “freebies” like no-charge shipping. We are talking about chargeable services beyond the press, either upstream or downstream, that add to the printer’s bottom line. When you talk to printers who have structured their businesses around value-added services, you find that their profitability is much higher than the industry average, and the profitability of this portion of their business typically outstrips that of the press.

As a printer, if you are not invested in value-added services, you are potentially missing the most profitable portion of your business. There’s no getting around it. If you are focusing exclusively on the printing portion of your business, you can invest in the most sophisticated workflows, the best-automated presses, the highest-tech digital proofing, and still find that, unless you are pushing through enormous volumes, margins are seemingly impossible to grow. Printers that do have strong and growing businesses aren’t doing it by selling the output from their presses. They are doing it by using their press as a draw to other, more profitable services.

Definition Of Value-Added Services