Thoughts on Resellers buying print overseas?

M

Midlothian247

New Member
I resell print for a living :) Woh amazing Life style haha just joking although I am at a problem at the moment one of my competitors has all of a sudden lowered his prices their ridiculous, and i can not compete with them any more , I've heard through the grape vine that he is using a company called united print(Germany).

at current all of my print is produced in the UK through a few company's i have built a good business relationship with, although I have a few offices I deal with regularly I'm at risk of losing most of the event planner/promoters in my area which brings me a lot of business.

I'm just looking for your thoughts on if anyone has dealt with them, on importing print (i wouldn't do this for my commercial customers) and if anyone else has this problem ?

Thanks
Iain
 
Hello Iain,

As a fellow reseller, I hope I can help. This exact situation happened to me, happens to me now, and will happen to me long into the future.

Printbar buys British. And we will only buy British for as long as we operate. That's not out of some misguidedly jingoistic standpoint, it's out of common sense. I don't believe for one second that a British print job is inherently better than a job from Asia, Europe, or anywhere else in the world. What I do think, though, is this:

1. As a reseller, it's my job to give the best possible service and support to my clients.

2. As a reseller, if one job goes wrong then I'm likely to lose that client forever and always.

3. Following those points, it's only sensible to use a supplier that will deliver on time, for a fair (not necessarily the cheapest) price, and to or above the expected quality.

Unfortunately, I don't speak any languages other than English and French. Even French I speak badly. With that in mind, I'm not confident in my ability to deal with suppliers in China. That's a problem with me, not them, but my clients deserve me to do the best I can for them, and that means dealing with people that I can deal with properly.

I can totally see the benefits in sourcing overseas, but unless you can guarantee that you are a perfect interface between client and supplier then you should not get involved.

-PB
 
Hi Printbar i totally agree with you here my only problem with sourcing over seas is your potentially opening yourself up to lot of problems, he may steal my customers away but I'm sure they will soon return
 
How about this?

You take the dilemma you're discussing, and make it your sales pitch - by making your dilemma the choice your customer has to make.

"Mr customer, I can of course offer you the same offshore sourced option you have been offered down the road. Most of my customers have tried that at some point. Provided you know what you're buying it's a very useful, cheap supply line. However, it doesn't suit most, and we still produce most work locally. Our premium service works out at £moreexpensive, because we'll back it with our "we hit your deadline else you get the job for free" guarantee. We can offer that due to our reliable local sources. Our offshore route @ £cheaper is perfectly acceptable print. What we've found though is that we can't offer the same reliability guarantee due to the variables associated with sourcing offshore."

Although you're comparing two services you're offering, you've removed the competitor from the equation. Anything you say about your offshore route is tarring the competition with the same brush. If your customer decided on the cheaper route you've set expectations low, and will hopefully exceed them, so he'll be back again. If things go sour, he's not going to be surprised and will consider it the risk HE took against your advice. If he picks the premium route he'll feel well informed, and when you meet your promises he won't even think about that cheaper option, as he decided he deserved the better service.

Provided you are accurate with you management of customer expectations, I don't see that you need to choose one route or the other. Do you?

Regards,
Craig
 
Nice advice Craig like it. Turn there strength into a weakness.

Out fo interest how long does print from somewhere like Germany take to arrive? Surely, we are talking at least a week...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top