In an interview with PrintWeek, Edison Litho COO Joseph Ostreicher explained the company's national client base are looking for more flexibility in its POP campaigns. "If we do a large rollout by a big retailer that has both large posters and small posters and has say 750 pieces to 1,200 pieces - all that's ideal for litho," he said. "But if you have a smaller run of say 35 pieces for a regional store, you can't put it on a litho because it's not cost effective. So we needed the digital press for two reasons - those short runs as well as jobs that are over 81 inches."

Edison Litho has just under 100 employees at its 80,000sqft facility just outside of New York City and may be the only US print facility with three operational KBA presses, enabling the company to print on paper, board, plastic, foil and many other substrates.

The slow but steady US economic recovery is driving retail and that in turn in turning POP and other in-store signage into a growth category. Ostreicher said the selection of the Rho 900 is part of Edison Litho's strategy to take advantage of that growth and came after months of evaluating new equipment.

"This made the most sense for our needs - it has roll-to-roll and sheet-to-sheet, so it's a hybrid," he said. "Until this point if we had a large campaign that had all these different pieces, for the smaller runs we would have to give it out. So this purchase was driven by our customers' needs because they came to us and said, 'We'd like it all under one roof'."

Christopher Howard, senior VP with Rochester, NY-based Durst US added, "The Rho 900 - as well as the Rho 1000 - are appealing to companies with clients doing event signage, trade shows, some outdoor as well as some architectural signage that needs high-end printing. But most of the interest stems from retailers."

"The trend in the retail space is for shorter runs that are more targeted," he continued. "So we're seeing shorter runs with more frequency and that's triggering more integration of digital."