The main advantages are still a simplified ordering process for customers, with jobs only being printed after they have been paid for, leading to much better cashflow for printers. But the sheer range of products that can be printed has changed the game completely.

Printers can still manufacture paper-based products such as posters and books. But they can also decorate other products, from clothing to furnishings. This has empowered a new creator economy, where small brands can offer those products without having any manufacturing facilities, knowing that they can be printed and drop-shipped direct to their customers.

This has led to the rise of a new type of platform that pulls together all the different elements. These platforms are based around web-to-print software, but this is combined with deep integrations to other platforms within the e-commerce chain, including online retailers like Shopify and Etsy, as well as payment systems such as PayPal. On top of this, these platforms have put together a network of printing companies that offer a range of different print technologies complete with delivery and fulfilment.

In most cases, this network of printers is spread across multiple countries, providing a degree of scale that allows small brands to use these networks and compete effectively against larger brands that have their own manufacturing.

This means that orders can be taken in one country, and then produced in another, close to the end-customer, cutting the carbon footprint of shipping those products around the world. There’s also an economic and logistical advantage in not having to physically ship items across borders and deal with customs and tariffs.

Most of these platforms take a business-to-business approach, selling to small brands that don’t have the back-end logistics of the larger brands. Henrik Muller-Hansen, founder and CEO of Gelato, explains: “We have two customers. The makers are our production partners. It’s only digital printing, no offset. We only focus on connecting to machine-agnostic production partners. We have Landa, HP Indigo, Canon, Ricoh, Kornit, Brother – all those production machines and our software connects to these machines.

“On the other side we have creators and they are individuals or companies that want to sell personalised items to consumers across the planet. In the past 10 years the creator economy has gone from zero to this year around $300bn (£230bn).” He adds: “The creators have the consumers. We don’t have consumers. That’s not who we are. We are giving the makers and the creators a marketplace to meet.”

These platforms are still fundamentally based on web-to-print software, as Tetiana Pokhyla, marketing manager for Cloudprinter.com, explains: “Everything is driven by our Print API and smart routing algorithm. After an order comes to our system, the algorithm selects the most optimal production, while taking into consideration product availability, location of delivery, price of production and delivery, and the performance of our partners, with a score measured according to the number of reprints and delayed orders.”

Muller-Hansen says that Gelato has more of a managed service, taking care of everything for the production hubs from procurement to workflow to logistics. He adds: “And through software, managing that and taking full responsibility for the creation of the ready-to-print file for the production, for the post-press, for the packaging, for the logistics and then for the customer service. We don’t own any machines, this is pure software, and it is product agnostic.”

He continues: “We help them organise and optimise the warehouses. 10 years ago the average order value was around £500 but today it could be just £30, so the complexity in the beginning and the end of the whole value chain in a production hub has gone up exponentially. All of a sudden you have gone from handling paper in your warehouse to handling drinkware, apparel items, home decor and many other products that you never had to touch before. So you need to manage that. And you have gone from shipping perhaps 50 items per day to shipping 5,000 items during peak.”

This software has proved so successful that Gelato has now introduced a version called GelatoConnect for printers to use for their other work outside of Gelato.

Leaving aside the production software, there are a number of features that differentiate the different platforms, with the most obvious being the range of other services that they can integrate to. Printify, for example, has gone further than most platforms and integrates with most of the main online shopping platforms, including Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, eBay and PrestaShop. It also integrates with the main ecommerce systems, such as WooCommerce, which is part of Wordpress, as well as Wix and Squarespace.

HelloPrint has developed its Enterprise API, which goes beyond small creators and is instead aimed at enabling companies with multiple sites to centralise their print procurement process. Those companies can then take advantage of HelloPrint’s production network to have their orders printed at the nearest site to reduce shipping costs.

Hans Scheffer, CEO of HelloPrint explains: “We’ve always been a known leader in printed products for businesses in this space, and the launch of the API for Enterprises means that large, global businesses can now also access those products via a single solution with the reassurance that they’ll reduce costs, speed of delivery and the inconvenience of dealing with multiple suppliers, whilst also significantly reducing their carbon footprint. Important for many businesses, use of the API will also ensure absolute consistency in the way their brand is conveyed, regardless of geography.”

Another differentiating factor is the market sector that each platform targets. While most aim for the creator economy, some such as Mimeo are more of a B2B print management system. Mimeo is split across three main divisions. Mimeo Business is for outsourced  business printing such as marketing or training materials. Mimeo Photo specialises in photobooks, calendars, cards and wall decor – all items for which end-users can upload their own photographs. Then there is Mimeo Schools, which offers items such as school planners, exercise books and branded merchandise. Behind these Mimeo has three software offerings: Print is a document web-to-print platform, Marketplace lets users set up their own branded storefront and Digital offers an online training distribution platform. The printed solutions include printing and fulfilment for marketing collateral, promotional products and packaging.

Another distinguishing feature is the range of products that each platform can handle. Cloudprinter, for example, has a catalogue with over 50,000 different items, with its printer partners all working from the same catalogue. Pokhyla says: “We do not limit them on sourcing; if something is not available then we simply disable it in the partner’s account, and the algorithm will not consider them for such orders.”

Gelato, however, has a much looser approach to sourcing blank products for decoration.

Muller-Hansen says: “It doesn’t make any meaning to have the exact same garment in China, in Australia, in Paris, in London or in New York because there are different types of suppliers in each continent. We want to have similar and we want to guarantee that they uphold good corporate governance, good corporate standards. That’s our guarantee, but not that you have the exact same product. But also our guarantee is that for the first time now you can cost-effectively reach the whole planet with one single network.”

Production networks

The success of these platforms depends heavily on the network of printers and the different print technologies that they bring with  them. These networks also give the creators the ability to fulfil the orders internationally, close to the end-customer, regardless of where the creators are based. So not surprisingly, all the platforms claim to have an extensive network of several hundred print business in  multiple countries.

The obvious attraction to the printers is that these orders can help fill up the presses and keep them running at full capacity with very little extra work to win these orders. However, the printers do have to satisfy minimum service levels. Muller-Hansen says: “Generally speaking we are very restrictive of whom we connect to. You have to have state-of-the-art operations, you have to have great technology stack and you need to be software-oriented. We seek production partners that have quality, technology and scale in their mindset.”

Cloudprinter takes a different approach as Pokhyla explains: “Any print provider may join Cloudprinter.com for free, if they could offer the products from our catalogue. However, we perform onboarding and strict QC before routing real orders to new partners. Also, we arrange ‘ghost orders’ on a regular basis, and our team is on top of reprint quantity and reasons. If there are any quality issues exceeding normal references then the partner will not get new orders till the problem is fixed. All those measures help us to ensure the consistent quality for our clients.”

HappyPrinting, on the other hand, offers a franchise model, where printers can become the exclusive supplier in their country. The company splits its suppliers according to products, such as textiles, photo products, labels and packaging. HappyPrinting gives the franchisees advice on branding, marketing and technology, as well as access to the network to fulfil overseas orders. Printers can operate under the HappyPrinting brand or set up their own branding.

It’s worth noting that there are already similar platforms specialising in additive manufacturing, using 3D printer hubs to offer short run parts production. So it seems likely that in the future these W2P platforms will expand into both industrial printing and 3D printing, and that this distributed manufacturing model will become more commonplace, with printing companies at its heart.