Shopify is one of the world’s most popular eCommerce platforms, with powerful functionality enabled through a simple, user-friendly interface. It handles both the commerce and POS side of the process.
No wonder over a million businesses use Shopify to power their eCommerce businesses, including print companies. Research reports a 126% year-over-year growth for Shopify Plus merchants on average. That is, indeed, commendable!
While the basic Shopify storefront is feature-packed enough to start with, print businesses, specifically, can benefit from extra plugins that can enhance the personalization functionality. Consumers of today want personalization; you have to give that to them!
There are two options available for print businesses that wish to augment their Shopify storefronts — using plugins from the Shopify App Store or adding customized web-to-print workflows. Let us understand them both a bit more in detail:
1. Shopify App Plugins
The Shopify App Store is one of the best places to look for plugins that increase core functionality. Several apps can enable online personalization for print products, most of which fall under two categories:
a. Print-On-Demand Services For Shopify
Several print-on-demand fulfillment companies have their extensions on the app store. By installing these, print businesses can offer their customers personalized products fulfilled by a third-party vendor.
The apps are typically connected with the vendors’ MIS systems so that orders get sent automatically, enabling them to handle the printing and shipping without any hassle. The customers, on the other hand, can track order status.
While this is a quick and convenient solution, the downside is that print outsourcing results in print businesses losing high margins. Plus, most print-on-demand vendors offer only a limited set of products.
b. Web-To-Print Plugins
These allow print businesses with their printing capacities to design their products online while taking care of manufacturing and shipping themselves, which can be very well integrated into the storefront.
These plugins tend to be incredibly niche to the business. Hence, they appear to be limited in functionality as they support only a small set of workflows for a more significant eCommerce business. But that is not the case for printers.
If your printing company is looking for enhanced customization, you should adopt web-to-print plugins. Otherwise, choose a Shopify product designer that can offer you the desired levels of flexibility, and that brings us to the second category.
2. Custom Product Personalization Options
For maximum functionality and full control over every step of the web-to-print process, a Shopify custom product designer is the best way to go. It allows for almost any kind of personalization to be plugged in so that customers can get exactly the product and design they are looking for. One reason the web-to-print Shopify option deters many merchants is that developing and integrating an online editor can be expensive.
However, with some time and effort, smaller businesses can also deploy their custom solutions. Plus, leading web-to-print service providers such as Design’N’Buy can lay down the groundwork for you and offer competitive pricing to the Shopify product designer.
Five Steps To Take To Empower Your Web2print Shopify Storefront
Once your printing business has figured out what it wants to sell, the kinds of customizations it will offer, and how the orders will be fulfilled, deploying a custom solution becomes more straightforward. There are five main steps to a customization project:
a. Deploying The Web-To-Print Application
When your customer chooses to customize a print product, a web page will pop up with the editor. This Shopify product designer is an integrated web application that the print business will need to host on either physical or cloud infrastructure.
Once they have personalized the product, the editor renders the print-ready file sent onward for printing. Through the web-to-print admin panel, you can ensure the product is accurately printed and shipped on time.
b. Integrating The Application With The Shopify Backend
To make the best use of this integration, data exchange between Shopify and the web-to-print application should go both ways. For instance, the application can retrieve the prices for the user’s selected products from the Shopify store and send them back along with the print-ready file. Your web2print Shopify storefront can ensure that happens seamlessly.
c. Designing The Personalization Workflow
This is the most critical step, as a bulky interface will put users off no matter how many customizations it offers. There are two types of product personalization options — creating product designs and choosing product attributes. Both of these need to be combined with a user-friendly interface that customers can navigate without trouble.
When you join hands with Design’N’Buy Web to Print, you will have a say regarding how customized you want the interface. Convenience is everything not just for your customers but also for your vendors to carry on their day-to-day business.
d. Setting Up A Product
In the context of a web-to-print business, a product consists of multiple elements, including the product templates, its different attributes, and the online editor configuration. Once the product is set up on the system and activated, customers can start personalizing it at once using the Shopify custom product designer. It is that simple!
e. Managing assets
Design assets such as templates, colors, fonts, patterns, and image libraries are essential parts of the web-to-print integration with Shopify. They need to be stored securely in an organized fashion. You can fix such elements beforehand for your printing business and ensure the backend has been customized using your branding.
Summing It Up
Your printing business can grow exponentially if it integrates the right web-to-print Shopify solution with online product personalization. It will make it convenient for you to do business and enable customers to browse through, customize products, and place an order relatively quickly. You won’t have to supervise everything because of superior automaton prowess.
Suppose you are thinking about giving your web2print Shopify storefront but don’t know where to begin. Don’t worry — you can drop us a line at inquiry@designnbuy.com or fill this contact form. We will connect with you at the earliest.
Originally published at https://bitrebels.com on December 13, 2020.
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