Mega Printers: Pros and Cons

From the buyer’s perspective, there are pros and cons in working with a mega printer (a printer that represents $500 million or more in sales volume). Print Buyers Online.com’s (www.printbuyersonline.com) major print buyer members, of whom 60% give business to mega printers, recently shared their thoughts on the subject. Here are some of the reasons why buyers consider it an advantage to work with mega printers:

“We work with one of them on a large project where they do the production and printing of a catalog. They have handled it very well and have the resources for that kind of project whereas smaller printers don’t.”

“I use mega printers when a really large project hits because it can be much more economical.”

“As part of our hurricane preparedness plan, we require relationships with print suppliers well out of Florida and even away from neighboring states. Having a relationship with a mega printer not only gives us that emergency option, but in these times of high fuel costs, we are able to print large jobs close to their delivery cities and save charges as well as time on dated materials.”

“The mega printers certainly offer a lot more options.”

On the other hand, some print buyers find it is not advantageous to work with mega printers because they do not offer the personal relationships smaller print shops foster:

“The customer service level (with a mega printer) is far less than a print buyer experiences with a smaller print vendor.”

“In the past, I used one when one of the small operations was bought out and it merged into a mega printer. The errors in billing became such an issue that we decided to move our work to a smaller company.”

“They are continually trying to quote us the ‘whole package’ of our printing needs, but we do better on our own. We give them the limited few jobs that they can compete for on a job-by-job basis.”

“With the larger printers, the buyer is forced to adhere to the constraints within the mega print structure for invoicing, inventory reporting, etc. The buyer definitely does not have control in the communications from the mega printer.”

When more and more of the industry is looking to outsource everything from project management to composition to printing, have you chosen to go to the "big guns" or stay with the smaller ones? And which has saved you both time and money?