Going Online When You're More Than a Printer
EFI’s Digital Storefront™
By Greg Cholmondeley
In-Plant Segment Marketing Manager,
Ricoh Americas Corporation
There are a growing number of corporate and commercial printing operations repositioning themselves as print service providers rather than as just printers. As these accounts turn to the Internet to reach their clients they are more interested in a full e-commerce presence than just print submission. EFI’s Digital Storefront offers web-to-print capabilities for these types of accounts providing intranet and Internet client e-commerce and job submission as well as powerful variable data printing and data workflow management.
Digital Storefront makes client interactions with your in-plant more of a shopping experience than a print submission process.
With it, clients can:
- Order reprints from a catalog (e.g. manuals, coursepacks, forms, etc.)
- Order non-print products from a catalog (e.g. logo merchandise, supplies, etc.)
- Create and order variable data printing jobs
- Order kits (which could include static or VDP printing as well as other products)
- Oh yes, and submit traditional print masters with job tickets
Being built around an e-commerce model, EFI’s Digital Storefront product works as well on the Internet as it does behind firewalls on corporate intranets. It has strong built-in security as well as integration with authentication services to support even the largest printing operations. Its payment methods are designed to handle internal cost centers as well as credit cards. It’s unlimited seat license model means that any number of regular and "surf-in" customers can use it to submit jobs or orders. And its secure transfers maintain confidentiality in all environments.
In-plants needing these sorts of storefront capabilities will also need to have internal workflows that can support the anticipated volumes. Digital Storefront seamlessly integrates into EFI’s Micropress™ and Fiery® Central™ products for workflow management as well as into Fusion Pro™ and XMPie™ for variable data printing. It is a safe decision for the long haul because EFI is a strong company with a rich heritage in print production workflows, especially those involving color management.
All in all, if your in-plant strategy is to offer much more than printing and your customers require more of an online shopping model than a print driver for your services – EFI’s Digital Storefront should be one of your top choices.
Greg Cholmondeley
Segment Marketing Manager
Ricoh Americas Corp.
An expert in production printing environments and solutions, Greg Cholmondeley is responsible for in-plant marketing for Ricoh Americas’ Production Printing Business Group. He brings 25 years of engineering, systems architecture, solutions development and industry marketing experience to this assignment. Greg can be reached at Greg.Cholmondeley@Ricoh-USA.com or at 561.516.0238.
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