New Site Aims to Disrupt $100 Billion Printing Industry - On a $3,939 Budget

Monday, March 25, 2013

Press release from the issuing company

Gainsville, FL - Stop the presses — and welcome to the web Printaholic.com, a new site designed to provide insight into the value and quality delivered by popular printing services.

To date, Printaholic.com has spent $3,939.03 anonymously ordering 7,475 printed items, all for the sake of holding the printing industry accountable to its customers.

"We're literally buried in business cards, brochures, T-shirts and many other items we have no intention of using, other than for review purposes," said Kevin Austin , head print addict and site manager of Printaholic.com. "But for good reason: no site has ever spent real money holding printers accountable for bad print jobs. Now there's one site that does."

To carry out their covert mission, Austin and his team anonymously ordered print jobs from dozens of popular printing services over a three-month span. The team then photographed and rated each print job based on price, ordering experience, delivery time and (most importantly) quality. The quality ratings were especially detailed, examining the paper stock used, color accuracy, pixelation and other key factors.

The team published its full findings on Printaholic.com, where ratings and photos of each order are listed by item and by company.

"Printaholic.com is the product of thousands of hours of hard work and research — not to mention thousands of dollars spent," said Austin. "The result is a one-of-a-kind site. I can't imagine why someone would order a print job and not check out Printaholic.com first."

In addition to detailed printing reviews, Austin and his team offer visitors an array of how-to tutorials, design ideas and other resources to help designers, marketers and business owners achieve beautiful results on their print jobs.

Printaholic.com is owned and operated by Digital Brands Inc., a Gainesville, Fla.-based web development firm devoted to building unique, pro-consumer web properties that solve user needs in innovative and engaging ways.

"If we succeed in getting the word out, we believe that Printaholic.com will change the $100 billion printing industry for the better," said Toby Sembower , CEO of Digital Brands Inc. "Just like any other consumer, those who order print jobs deserve to get good quality for the money they spend. Printaholic.com helps its users do just that."

Discussion

By John Henry on Mar 25, 2013

I read this and something seemed out of whack. Then I looked a bit closer.

Guess what, each of the printers on their site uses a Affiliate program for Printaholic to make money from .

Here is one clip from the redirect.

=affiliate&utm_campaign=6386621&utm_source=cj

So this is all just a more than slick way to get Affiliate cash. WTT fell for this one.

You can also see the link if you click on www.printxxx.com and it flashes a code after it or redirect they are getting a % of the sale.

I wonder how much of their $4000 in test buying was really orders by customers they were in fact reselling?

Finally tip off is the parent firm is in the business of doing these type of popup niche sites this one sticks out as it is shaded as
pro consumer site, when in reality it is revenue generation site.

Of course you should believe everything you find on the internet.

By Chuck Gehman on Mar 25, 2013

I think they've got a a few more dollars to spend before they reach "disruption".

Since as John says, it looks like their business model is "affiliation" right now.

I wouldn't say WTT fell for anything, just that it is kind of a weak business with a grandiose press release.

A press release, I might add, that seems unlikely to generate any action except a bunch of printers going to their site to see what they are doing, then scratching their heads.

By Andrew Gordon on Mar 25, 2013

I'm not sure how disruptive they can be. But, this is an attractive business model and they have built a slick referral site that has "some" objective authority. I liked their reviews and they were in line with my experience. Not 100%, but pretty good. The question to be answered is how effective will they be with SEO. There is only one other decent review site http://online-printing-services-review.toptenreviews.com. Both of these sites are going to be competing for search results and affiliate ad spend. ... and both will be competing with the print providers covered on the site and their own SEO efforts. Their advantage is how they are positioned to rank in SEO regardless of the branded search. You want PFL review? How about Zazzle review? ... or VistaPrint review?

By Stan Najmr on Mar 25, 2013

I hope Printaholic.com will not "disrupt" anything. They purchased few printed products hoping to start a review site for printing. Printaholic.com did what in the last century was called “study”. Today, they are trying to become a site for everybody to go to before they place their print order. They will also solicit money from printers and that would be their main source of income because no reviewer will pay them a dime. Welcome to the internet age where anybody from anywhere can show up at your doorsteps and demand your piece of business!

Valuable information to potential Printaholic.com users: It takes about the same time to pick up the phone and call your printer as to write and post review on the internet. I am Vistaprint client for many years. When mistakes were very rarely made, I called them up and they immediately corrected what was required and mailed me reprinted pieces without any extra cost. Majority of these mistakes were due to a design and had nothing to do with quality of print. No internet review site will make me to switch.

By Margie Dana on Mar 25, 2013

I agree with John - I sensed something very fishy from the get-go whenI read this press release. Then I saw the site. Then I realized how they must be making money - and no customer with half a brain will fall for this. All hype.

By Gary Guss on Mar 26, 2013

I'm a French model and I use Printaholic.com whenever I want to disrupt the billion dollar printing market.

By Andrew Gordon on Mar 26, 2013

It's pure affiliate referral model. There is no disruption to the industry. The will attempt to capture some of the SEO traffic and refer visitors to the service providers that they cover. If it turns into a purchase (tracked by coupon codes and/or cookies), then this company gets a commission. The press release is hype to get as much coverage as possible and as many backlinks as possible.

By Pete Basiliere on Mar 26, 2013

printaholic? Someone must be drinking the fountain solution . . .