The Didcot firm has become the exclusive UK franchise for Dutch print platform HappyPrinting, which has given the business an immediate online presence through its established web-to-print platform.
HappyPrinting is a HP innovation partner and part of HP’s InnoPartner programme, which means partner companies need to use HP technology. The firm said it had created an “international, scalable, online printing platform”, along with branding, marketing, and business support services.
DigiPress has a HP Indigo 7900 among its fleet of digital printing devices. It also has a HP Latex wide-format printer.
HappyPrinting CTO Jean-Pierre Meijer said: “We are experts of the printing industry. We have gained a lot of knowledge and expertise that we integrated into our web-to-print platform and made available for all our partners worldwide.”
It has partners in 13 countries, with Austria and Switzerland in the pipeline. In some countries, such as Japan, it is adding additional partners for specific product types such as labels and packaging.
The UK site has just gone live.
Digipress partner Ian Fitzgerald said: “We had very little online presence and it would have been difficult to build that from the ground up.
“This was a great opportunity to use an established platform. We are also collaborating and sharing ideas with the partners in other countries.”
The HappyPrinting product range spans marketing materials, photo gifts and wall art, and clothing and bags.
Digipress is working with a partner on t-shirts, which it cannot currently produce itself.
Separately, Digipress has invested in a Durst P5 350 hybrid printer that can handle roll-based flexible materials and board substrates up to 3.5 metres wide.
It also offers unattended operation, which has helped Digipress meet demand for fast turnaround, last minute jobs by leaving it printing overnight unattended.
Digipress partner Steve Jackson said: “Unattended printing has been a huge thing for our business.
“We can leave the machine printing overnight. It’s making us money while we sleep! This machine has been a godsend and a revolution for our business. It just eats up the materials.”
The £2m turnover, 15-staff firm invested around £380,000 in the new Durst device and has also revamped its factory as part of the new setup.
It also runs a raft of other kit including SwissQprint, Zund, and Canon devices.
