For something that spends more time with us than almost anyone or anything else, the mobile phone can be rather overlooked. Especially by printers.

Less a phone, nowadays, and more of a personal computer, these small conduits to a plethora of possibilities are being utilised by everyone from corporate giants like John Lewis and Amazon to 15-year-old bedroom videogame designers as a way of making considerable sums of money. The developers are capitalising on the fact that the phone makes the consumer a captive audience, ever-ready to be approached and persuaded to spend cash.

Successful as this assorted bunch has been in capitalising on the opportunity, the potential of mobile phones for businesses is actually still woefully untapped. A sizeable amount of that free space ready to be exploited could be claimed by print. And yet print, on the whole, seems reluctant to plant its flag. Some argue that this is with good justification, but others claim that it shows a dangerous lack of foresight.

It’s difficult to dispute that the mobile phone represents an opportunity for businesses of all types. In days gone by, consumers were suspicious of financial transactions on a mobile phone, but are now more than happy to make a purchase on a mobile and have more opportunity to indulge.

Consider the evidence: in December, techcrunch.com reported that smart phone penetration in the UK hit 58% of the population. Just last month, Visa reported that the number of contactless payments made in 2012 quadrupled and that a key reason for that boost was an increase in people using mobile phones for payments. Visa expects the figure to quadruple again in 2013, with mobile phones remaining at the heart of the push. Finally, according to Econsultancy, the number of visits to retail stores via mobile phone apps increased by 100% over Christmas 2012; meanwhile, the IMRG Capgemini eRetail Sales Index found that retail sales through mobile devices (including tablets) were up by 193% in 2012.

Retail experience
Buying goods via a mobile platform, then, is now a large part of the retail experience.
"Mobile payment is definitely on the rise," explains Dan Worth, news editor at tech magazine and news outlet V3.co.uk. "Consumers are increasingly comfortable with mobile retail platforms. Big names like Amazon, Marks & Spencers and John Lewis are at the forefront. Those big brands are making consumers more comfortable buying on their mobiles and are making them trust mobile retail more."

In theory, any form of print could be bought via a mobile or tablet (which usually use mobile software platforms). However, the higher-value the product or order, the more the need for accurate proofing, sophisticated approval systems and advanced editing and artworking options. These things are much more suited to desktop computers and are borderline impossible on mobile platforms.

Alex Granat, commercial director at Transeo Media, which distributes software including DirectSmile and Taopix, explains:"The tablets and mobiles are very much geared to the lower-end print product market as you simply don’t have the usability, flexibility or space on a mobile screen to do the editing and creation you would require for the higher-end products. Even the mid-end work is difficult here."

Basically, for print such as POS, leaflets, books and magazines, mobile software platforms are simply not sophisticated enough for consumers to order properly (though feasibly repeat orders of pre-approved artwork would be possible). Granat explains that it is much better suited to low-cost products where the customer is less discerning over colour and less in need of complex editing and proofing software.

As a result, the main area where there has already been activity in the mobile-to-print (M2P) space has been low-cost consumer photo products, along with some limited activity in basic trade requirements – such as repeat orders of business cards or leaflets.

HP Indigo photo segment manager of Graphic Solutions Business for EMEA Raffael Kraus explains that it is not just for technical reasons that this low-cost photo market has taken off, either.

"The photo market has gone through a revolution whereby the digital camera is now no longer the main tool for taking pictures," he explains. "The mobile platforms are now dominating that space and they are growing ever more dominant. The mobile is now our camera of choice and so it is on our mobiles that the photos are stored – not the desktop. The shift in camera choice also means we are taking more pictures than ever, as the mobile phone is always with us, so the amount of photos to be used has also exploded. For printers, the challenge is to tap into that massive store of potential print."

24/7 usage
As Kraus says, the fact that we now use a mobile phone as a 24/7 camera means we have thousands of photos stored on our mobile phones, ready to be utilised. While we can share them digitally via social media – which is also a key driver for the photos being taken – there are limited ways to share these photos in the physical space. So not only are low-cost photo products the easiest products to sell via mobile technically; they are also the area where there is most potential. This was the reason one of the UK’s leading mobile apps for photo printing was developed.

"We set up Touchnote in 2008," explains Touchnote founder and director Raam Thakrar. "I was trying to work out why I couldn’t send physical versions of the hundreds of phones stored on my mobile phone. We can do it digitally with Instagram and Facebook, but print hasn’t woken up to the potential to create physical versions of these photos that can be shared."
Touchnote did wake up to that opportunity and now has print partners in the US, UK, Germany and Australia, so as to reach a global audience. In 2012 alone, it achieved 2m downloads of its app, which enables cards and postcards to be posted to friends and relatives featuring photos from your phone.

The likes of Moonpig and Photobox are also operating in the mobile space, to great success. Many more apps have appeared over the past few years doing a similar job, with a fair few going through the presses of London-based Precision Printing. Managing director Gary Peeling says the M2P market is fast-becoming a central part of his business and that the firm’s experience in the W2P space has made it perfectly geared for the M2P market.

"It is an emerging area and is rapidly becoming central to our further development as a company," he explains. "The main applications for M2P are one-copy. Fortunately, we developed OneFlow, which enables us to receive those orders and process them automatically in a hands-free environment. Because we do not have to process the orders manually, and because they are produced and aggregated automatically, we can make those low-cost orders pay."

In terms of production, the actual processing of the files is no different whether they come from a mobile or a desktop computer. What is needed for M2P is arguably an even faster method than W2P. This workflow functionality, fortunately, already exists: Peeling announced recently that his OneFlow software is to be packaged as a commercial software product for other printers to buy; and HP and Ricoh add that they too have solutions that can be used.

While this workflow problem is easily surmountable, Ricoh UK strategic marketing manager for production print Gareth Parker says that data handling would be more difficult at the production end of M2P. For low-cost consumer items, it will only be address information and passwords that would realistically be on the printers’ servers – payment would generally go through a third party just as with W2P – but address and password information is still deemed sacrosanct by some customers and leaks of that information make headlines. Then, as you scale up the product, Parker says the risks become higher. That’s another reason low-cost work is more likely to take off on mobile platforms.

"If you are doing corporate work via mobile, it presents challenges for the printing company in terms of guaranteeing the security and integrity of their customers’ critical data when in transit or in the cloud," he explains.

HP’s Krauss, however, believes that solutions to these and the other production issues are already available, so should not be seen as a barrier. T    he actual product is much more of a challenge, he says.

"The challenge is actually sales and marketing," he explains. "You have to offer consumers a reason to print with a unique or quirky application. Finding that reason is difficult, but we have several customers that have done it. We have a customer in the US that partnered with an app company that can take Facebook images and the comments beneath them and create a print of that. Then you have the Sincerely app, which has provided customers with the ability to create a bespoke postcard from their own photos."

Touchnote’s Thakrar agrees that the app proposition far outweighs any production concerns. He explains that to attract consumer attention, you not only need a unique proposition fulfilling a need they may or may not know they have, but you also have to have the simplest and most rewarding user experience possible. This takes time and money to develop.

"You have to think about things like user activity," he says. "Can they use the app with one hand? How long would they be willing to stay on the app?" he explains. "In building an app, you need the technical expertise first and foremost, but you also need really sound consumer expertise. You need to know what it is the user will be expecting and wanting from your app. I have seen lots of companies who have just got this wrong and it is really painful to see. But when people get it right, it is fantastic."

Worth adds that it is essential to get it right first time, too: consumers don’t give second chances. "User testing is essential. If it does not work first time people will simply uninstall it," he says.

He adds that even if you do get the app right, that is no guarantee of success. "The app market is incredibly competitive and, being realistic, as a print app it is likely consumers will have to actively go looking for it rather than it appearing on any top 10 lists or the like. The important thing is generating the interest to make them go looking for it," he explains.

Thakrar agrees, stating that generating interest in the app among consumers is, again, an expensive process. He adds that this cost and time may well be beyond most printers, and also that most will not have the right skillsets in house to compete on the app-building side.

This was certainly how printed.com founder Nicholas Green felt when he considered how extensive to make his website’s app (at present it simply tracks deliveries; it doesn’t facilitate ordering).  "Designing and building apps is not easy and it will always be difficult for a conventional business to get that talent to build those apps internally," he explains. "You have to have a long-term view and substantial capital to develop an app properly. To develop our own app further will cost time, money and resources. Those elements are limited in every company. For our overall strategy going forwards, the app is not the top priority and other areas – such as developing W2P editing tools – are taking
precedence."

Common findings
Green’s findings are common, which is why printers working in this space typically partner with a developer, rather than try to develop an app in house. Peeling operates thusly, partnering with many developers. He is looking to expand that further. Each of the print products he provides has an API file. He is to make those files available to developers so that they can build apps around his products.

"One of the great things about this market is that you do not need to come up with the idea by yourself," he explains. "You just need to be able to connect your business to the person that does have the idea. So you can publish your APIs to developers across the world. If they wish to create an app, they can build an application based around your API. You can have many apps offering the same low-cost print products feeding your presses."

Forging those relationships is quite a tall order, however. Also, some feel it is misleading to focus on apps as a route into this market. After all, every phone has an internet browser. In theory, consumers should be able to order via mobiles as they would via desktops – using an existing W2P portal. This is certainly the view of Transeo Media’s Granat, who says DirectSmile can create optimised browser interfaces for customers to do everything from low-cost print to managing DM campaigns via mobile.

"The apps are a barrier. You don’t want to have to have to talk to Apple or Android or the others to get your app running," he explains. "By using the browser you bypass all that. To do that, the interface must be optimised and designed for mobile usage."

Using the browser certainly makes M2P more accessible for printers. Peeling admits it is feasible – but asks if it is sensible. The whole point of M2P is simplicity, he explains, and the best route to that simplicity is via apps. Worth agrees.

"For those with less cash to invest, using the browser is a good option if you can direct consumers that way as an extra sales channel. However, if the mobile platform is going to be a significant part of the business, you really do need to invest in building a bespoke app so that the user experience is optimised. You must ensure that the offering is focussed and easy to use, because consumers simply prefer to use an app on the mobile phone," he explains. "Over time, that preference for apps will only increase."

So, while optimising your W2P portal for mobile use may be a good way to test the water, realistically you will require an app if you are to have any meaningful presence in the market.
And it is a market that will continue to grow – this much is universally acknowledged. Peeling says that as the devices get more sophisticated, the print that can be bought via them will also get more sophisticated. Worth adds that M2P will be aided, too, by technology making it increasingly useable.

"Mobile retail will keep increasing," he explains. "More people will have smart phones and tablets. 4G will make apps run faster and transactions will be quicker, and convenience will mean greater numbers of consumers gravitate to mobile retail," he concludes.

Print cannot afford to ignore this reality. However it opts to embrace M2P, it also has to do it quickly or the opportunity may be missed and a rival technology may grab the consumer’s attention. Just as W2P made print relevant to the current generation, M2P is going to ensure its relevance to the next.