The online store shows the company’s range of
inks and coatings available to order 24/7 (Photo Flint Group)
Flint Group Packaging, a supplier of consumables to the global print and packaging industry, seeks to focus on the ease of doing business and order efficiency for its customers with its Webshop platform.
Underlining the company’s vision of a connected future, the online store shows the company’s range of inks and coatings available to order 24/7 in just a few clicks. The purpose is to provide customers with more versatility, flexibility, and performance in managing the procurement of consumables.
Designed to keep pace with the speed of today’s packaging market, the Webshop enables simple, fast ordering and reordering of inks and coatings.
Thomas Gray, vice-president, strategy & market intelligence at Flint Group Packaging, explains the significance, “With our dedicated online Webshop, we are giving our customers an additional digital channel that simplifies order processing. It’s no secret that the pressure is on for packaging converters to deliver when it comes to agility and on-time order fulfillment. We understand the importance of our customers’ procurement processes and personnel; therefore, we’ve designed Webshop to complement and support the detailed administration involved in procurement. Our aim was to develop a tool to assist with inventory management; particularly when it comes to repeat orders.
Webshop allows the company to deliver a higher level of service and support to customers. “As well as being open for ordering 24/7, Webshop is available in multiple languages, so no matter where our customers are, we speak your language. Add in precise real-time order tracking and paperless invoicing, and the benefits are clear. Webshop goes beyond your standard online store, it’s a bespoke experience that is built around our packaging customers’ needs, not ours,” Gray said.
Thomas concludes: “The concept of a web store isn’t new, but the way we have built this is led by the needs of our customers; an approach which is core to Flint Group’s strategy. For printers, time is precious and every moment counts. By taking the ordering process and translating it into a slick, intuitive online eCommerce platform, we’re enabling procurement to happen in a fraction of the time and on our customers’ terms. We are delighted with what we have created, and the feedback we have had from our customers so far has been extremely positive.”
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
