MIS / W2P - how much does it cost to play?

jdr999

Well-known member
I've been reading that a W2P system isn't as powerful as it could be without a reliable MIS backend - which does make sense.

But where do you start when you have neither?

Even an inexpensive W2P system can cost hundreds of dollars a month which can be a sizable amount of money for a small shop.. Is it worth it?

What are the various monthly (or yearly) price points for:

A decent MIS?
A decent W2P with web design and ready-made templates?
A decent integrated MIS/W2P system?

..for a small, low volume digital shop with 2-3 employees (entry level color press, 44" inkjet & laminator, color plotter, finishing, etc..)

Thanks,
Joe
 
A good MIS will save you time and money. A cost plus based MIS can show you before you accept a job that you will make money, rather than just assuming that you will make money. You or the MIS vendor can help do the ROI.

Unless you have a good “go to market” plan, the W2P side of things might not make you any money. IMHO, It is better to have existing B2B customers that place regular orders via the website than hope that B2C customers might select you over Vistaprint (do you really wish to play that game?). You may or may not have “ready-made templates”, depending on the W2P system.

It is not just how much a MIS or MIS+W2P system can cost - the other half of the story is how much money you will make/save.

The MIS could be a single one off charge for a perpetual license, or it could be SAAS monthly pay as you go license.

The W2P again could be a one off or a monthly fee - or a combination of both.

There may be “click charges” in the W2P system, in addition to hosting and other ongoing fees.

What is your budget per week? Where are you located?

To help you start thinking about the various issues, check out the following MIS buyer’s guide from the Accura Print-MIS (the info in the guide can be used for any MIS system purchase, not just Accura):

Accura MIS Buyer's Guide - Print Estimating - Order Processing - Job Costing - Stock Control - CRM - The Print MIS System of Choice


Stephen Marsh
 
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Unless you have a good “go to market” plan, the W2P side of things might not make you any money. IMHO, It is better to have existing B2B customers that place regular orders via the website than hope that B2C customers might select you over Vistaprint (do you really wish to play that game?). You may or may not have “ready-made templates”, depending on the W2P system.

Totally agree with your assessment, Stephen. Surprisingly, competing on price against power players like Vistaprint is not all that difficult, though you will have to pick your battles. But for a 2-3 person shop to try to even come close to the functionality of a Vistaprint-scaled shopping site is ludicrous.

Assuming you know how to manage a simple billboard website, Joe, take a look at Wordpress with the WooCommerce plug-in (both free) and BigCommerce (under $50/month). Those solutions won't get you ready-made templates, but if you limit yourself to a few commodity items such as stationery, newsletters, invitations, you can at least put up a basic showcase site with sample prices and the ability to upload customer files. Here are examples to give you an idea of what's possible with very little cost and effort:

BigCommerce - CloudPrintStore
Wordpress/WooCommerce - Morning FlyBy's
Reviews - WordPress eCommerce Guide: WooCommerce Review - Sell with WordPress

My advice, Joe? Start small and work your way up. Whatever you do, don't get yourself locked into big setup fees and a yearly contract. The field is still much too volatile for that. Even when you do pay for long-term hosting in advance (i.e. BlueHost's 3-year, $3.95/month plan), make sure you can cancel at any time and get your balance back.
 
Totally agree with your assessment, Stephen. Surprisingly, competing on price against power players like Vistaprint is not all that difficult, though you will have to pick your battles. But for a 2-3 person shop to try to even come close to the functionality of a Vistaprint-scaled shopping site is ludicrous.

Agreed, that one can compete on certain products, however, even if one can do it, why would one chose to do so? Why race to the bottom? Why compete for the lowest margin work? Why devalue your product and your services, skill, knowledge, equipment etc? Why become a vendor of cheap commodity products that nobody values? If you don’t value your work and services, why would a potential client? No matter your production efficiencies, the only way to win (stay in business) is to do large volumes to make up for the low margin. Does anybody really think that they will do that many low profit jobs in order to keep the business profitable? There will always be a % of clients that chase the lowest $, some get burnt and then on the next print job they look for quality over the cheapest price, the rest just don’t care about the product they purchase, the cheapest wins every time.

Back to the topic at hand - MIS, W2P and integrated MIS+W2P.

I would strongly suggest that the best way to approach this is to think internally. It all starts with the MIS. Then look at an eCommerce solution or Web to Print solution etc.

Why start with the MIS? The value that a good cost plus based MIS will bring to your business is not available with a simple web storefront. The time and money saved with a good MIS will make the MIS solution “pay for itself” in a short period of time - even for small shops.

Why not focus on the W2P first, then worry about internal matters later? Shouldn’t one be more concerned with what will bring in money, rather than internal concerns? This is not Field of Dreams - build it and they will come… Just having an eCommerce site is not enough.

What type of site will it be? Will it be Business to Business (B2B) focussed, or will it be Business to Consumer (B2C). If it was my money, I would be looking at B2B first. Leverage your existing client base. Retain their loyalty, make it easier for them to order from you - so easy that they don’t wish to “shop” anywhere else. Chasing after the B2C market, many are just tyre kicking, you have to put up your price list and compete with other publicly available prices. We all know that the manufacturing process known as printing is not always so clear cut, you will put up a price on a lower priced XYZ product, when in reality the B2C surfer really want’s the more expensive ABC product produced at the XYZ price.

The final question asked by Joe was about an integrated MIS+W2P solution. There are many MIS solutions out there. There are many stand alone W2P solutions out there. There are many W2P from different vendors that say that they can “integrate” with an MIS, but what does this really mean and how much will it cost (up front and ongoing)?

There are not many fully integrated MIS+W2P solutions from a single provider out there at a reasonable price point for a small to medium sized print business…

That is probably enough for this post, more to come on the final point later!


Stephen Marsh
 
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I would strongly suggest that the best way to approach this is to think internally. It all starts with the MIS. Then look at an eCommerce solution or Web to Print solution etc. The value that a good cost plus based MIS will bring to your business is not available with a simple web storefront. The time and money saved with a good MIS will make the MIS solution “pay for itself” in a short period of time - even for small shops.

Great post, Stephen. With all the fog and unrealistic expectations about the magic powers of W2P, it's high time for a reality check. Your insights help clear the air.

If it was my money, I would be looking at B2B first. Leverage your existing client base. Retain their loyalty, make it easier for them to order from you - so easy that they don’t wish to “shop” anywhere else. Chasing after the B2C market, you have to put up your price list and compete with other publicly available prices.

So would I, Stephen. In fact, that's precisely what I did during the 30+ years I owned an offset shop, making it easy for our customers to order from us, I mean. So easy that I even wrote a computer program that allowed them to access our prices - back in 1996, years before there was a commercial internet.

As you can see, I'm a big fan of published prices. Not only for the services we provided during my print shop days, but also now, for our software. Come to think of it, there really isn't much point to even think about putting up a W2P site if a shop owner is held back by the old "call us, we'll talk" mentality. Prices are part and parcel of a shopping web site. Without them, it's just a billboard.

Hal Heindel
About Us | Morning Flight
Printing for Peanuts Campaign | Morning Flight
 
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Come to think of it, there really isn't much point to even think about putting up a W2P site if a shop owner is held back by the old "call us, we'll talk" mentality. Prices are part and parcel of a shopping web site. Without them, it's just a billboard.

Hal Heindel


Hi Hal, yes I agree, it is expected that prices have to be displayed (where possible), either in a B2B or B2C eCommerce solution.

For “standard” products, it is easy to offer a “fixed” price. In a B2B setting, the price offered can “slide” depending on which customer logs into the site. On a B2C site, the price “is what it is” or the prospect can contact the printer to discuss the project further, which may increase or decrease the cost of the job.

Some printer’s have trading terms that the final order cost may change with stock availability, or once they receive the artwork that was not provided when quoting (art not print ready and requires extra prepress, high ink coverage that the quote did not account for etc).

That being said, printing is manufacturing - and not all jobs can be configured as a “standard”, sometimes the various options need to be discussed. This is part of adding value, rather than just being a commodity (which has it’s place as well for “standard” jobs). Now it may not be a case of “talking” in person, the quote request may be submitted from the eCommerce site with a text description of the details and then the printer quotes on this and the prospect receives an email or a notification link to the site for the final price.

As I mentioned, when prospects or regular clients are “shopping” for prices between different eCommerce sites, they may not be comparing apples to apples products or prices - which usually becomes clear when there is some “dialog” between the two parties.


Stephen Marsh
 
Joe asked about “A decent integrated MIS/W2P system”. This integration is the holy grail of web to print solutions. It should be a no brainer as to why it is important to have an MIS. Why is integration between the MIS and W2P system so important? There are many reasons why, the major points being:

* In addition to their high cost, most W2P solutions are stand alone solutions. They don’t talk to the MIS. The MIS does not talk to the website. When an order comes in from the web, all of the info has to be manually entered into the MIS, this double handling creates extra work/costs and is a bottle neck to production. There is always a chance of operator error, creating costly mistakes. W2P is meant to be about automation and reducing touch points, not adding manual work/touchpoints!

* The third party W2P solution can automatically talk to the MIS, or the MIS can talk to the website using XML or another protocol. This integration is not usually “plug n play” or “out of the box”, they generally require costly integration and there may be limited possibilities of communication from/to the disparate systems. It is not just about the initial integration, potentially any update or change to the MIS or the W2P site may break the communication, requiring costly ongoing fixes to patch the integration.

* How will you raise job tickets/bags etc. to internally produce these orders with a minimum of confusion and errors?

* In addition to maintaining the cost/price structure in the MIS, now you have to additionally manage the cost database in the W2P system. Usually these are very simple spreadsheet/matrix based price tables. When you change pricing in your MIS, you then have to update the W2P system. More work, more chance for error.

* Will you be able to maintain the system, or will you need I.T. support or take a staff member away from what they are currently doing to help manage the W2P system?

* W2P means different things to different people. Does the W2P solution create artwork or is it only an eCommerce solution, a way to accept orders? If there is an artwork generation component, does it use a proprietary file format for the templates, or can one use a PDF or InDesign file as a start point for the template system? Or do you have to recreate all of your templates in a proprietary editor, either B2B or B2C?

* Are there W2P “click charges” for traffic uploads and downloads to the W2P site, in addition to the monthly W2P hosting fee (over and above standard internet/ISP bandwidth). What happens if the client makes a mistake, are you charged again when they re-submit or change their order?

* If the MIS and the W2P site don’t communicate order status, dispatch or invoice info, you will be dealing with multiple phone calls or emails regarding these orders.

Multiply these points by say 5-50 or more orders per day…

It is possible to have a decent MIS system with a fully integrated bi-directional eCommerce and PDF Artwork creation W2P site, all from the same vendor, all working seamlessly without having the need for ongoing I.T. support. This may be less expensive than one may believe, when looking at all of the features offered by the combined MIS and W2P solution.

True Web to Print - not Web to Nowhere!

http://accuramis.com/pages/products/accuraonline.htm


Stephen Marsh
 
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What are the various monthly (or yearly) price points for:

A decent MIS?
A decent W2P with web design and ready-made templates?
A decent integrated MIS/W2P system?

..for a small, low volume digital shop with 2-3 employees.

Stephen has offered a detailed list of what a decent integrated MIS/W2P system should look like, and in his latest post he's pretty much nailed it.

You asked about price points. Frankly, I don't have a clue. Those figures are hard to come by and rarely published by W2P vendors. In light of the obvious complexity of the system Stephen describes, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that a low volume digital shop can't afford it. That still leaves the cost of a decent MIS, which, if you're still making do without (and it sounds like you are) should be your starting point in any event. Here the cost is minimal: $345.00 U.S., perpetual use license, no maintenance fees.

Hal Heindel
Why even the smallest Printshop needs an MIS | Morning Flight
 
Stephen has offered a detailed list of what a decent integrated MIS/W2P system should look like, and in his latest post he's pretty much nailed it.

You asked about price points. Frankly, I don't have a clue. Those figures are hard to come by and rarely published by W2P vendors. In light of the obvious complexity of the system Stephen describes, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that a low volume digital shop can't afford it. That still leaves the cost of a decent MIS, which, if you're still making do without (and it sounds like you are) should be your starting point in any event. Here the cost is minimal: $345.00 U.S., perpetual use license, no maintenance fees.

Hal Heindel

In Australia, we have 2 license system customers running a small digital shops that may have around 5 employees. We also have customers running a 50+ license systems, that have over a hundred employees. The Accura MIS is designed for small to medium enterprise, as such it is scaleable and modular. We have customers in digital only. We have customers with offset and digital. We have WF/Signage, commercial print, trade printers, print management/brokers, narrow web label flexo and digital, screen printers etc.

When one is shown all of the benefits of a decent cost plus MIS solution, the question is not - “can I afford such a system”, the question then becomes “can I afford not to have such a system”.

It is not easy to simply quote a price without having a detailed discussion with a prospect, it is a two way conversation. It is not about what the vendor wishes to sell, it is about the prospects needs - both today and into the future. Sometimes a prospect does not realise that something is possible, until they are having the discussion with the MIS vendor on what features are available.

As mentioned previously, it is not just about the cost of the MIS, that is only half of the picture. An ROI needs to have both cost and savings. It can be hard to quantify all of the savings and advantages that a decent MIS will bring to a print company, as many are intangible (what price do you put on being able to raise a “standard” quote and email it to a customer in around a minute, while they are still on the phone?).

As the Accura MIS is a scaleable and modular system, it will depend on the number of users, the user license versionn and the optional modules on the total system cost. The prospect will often know what they wish to do, however they need to discuss variables and options with the MIS vendor. Combine this with an assessment of the prospects business and what the work and volumes that they are producing today and potentially into the future. One can start small, then add on seats and modules later when needed, or one can start large.

As previously mentioned, costs can be less than one may think. The Accura MIS is not in the same price range as Morning Flight. The Accura MIS is a very different product in features and approach, not in the same league, it is not an apples to apples comparison (Hal, I have installed and looked the the free version of Morning Flight).

The Accura MIS is a perpetual license. The Accura MIS offers free* updates to all releases, whether a “.dot” maintenance release or a full blown new version release (*while a customer remains on support contract).

For the MIS only, a starting price for a single seat unlimited user perpetual license is around $100 per week, over 36 months. What does one get for around $100 per week?

Accura Print Estimating - Core Module Features
Accura MIS - An Introduction - YouTube (15 min)
Estimating In Accura MIS - YouTube (6 min)

One really needs to have a live demo of all the benefits and features, the videos barely scratch the surface (the videos are old, Accura works on both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows, including Windows 8).

Adding in the fully integrated bi-directional AccuraOnline eCommerce with B2B W2P modules would of course change the price from $100 p/week. I am not in sales, I provide technical support and onsite training, so I don’t usually concern myself with pricing.

As previously mentioned, the MIS side of things is generally a no brainer. Adding on an eCommerce or W2P option requires a bit more thought. If you have regular B2B customers, then it should be easy enough to make a profit on the system. If you are chasing B2C work, how many of your current daily sales are to new clients and how much profit are you making on these jobs? You have to pay your existing overheads, as well as the W2P system that you are hoping will bring in more work. When you decide that you do wish to have an eCommerce or W2P option, you then have to decide how important it is to have integration with your MIS. I believe that MIS+W2P integration is critical. If you have neither MIS or W2P, it is a good idea to look at an MIS system that offers both, so that you know what the “ideal” package offers. If you go with a MIS and a simple storefront or W2P system from different vendors, there may be little or no integration and the cost may be prohibitive.


Stephen Marsh
 
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As previously mentioned, costs can be less than one may think. The Accura MIS is not in the same price range as Morning Flight. The Accura MIS is a very different product in features and approach, not in the same league, it is not an apples to apples comparison (Hal, I have installed and looked at the free version of Morning Flight).

Thank you for downloading and having a look at Morning Flight, Stephen. As I'm sure you've discovered, the free edition of Morning Flight is not an MIS - it will do quotes, but not job tickets or invoices, nor a host of other functions you would expect to find in a true MIS. So here we are indeed comparing apples to oranges. The price point of $345.00 I mentioned does, however, buy you a full MIS: Morning Flight Pixelblitz. Comparing any Print MIS against Pixelblitz WILL get us in the apple orchard.

Pixelblitz Demo | Morning Flight
The Six Steps of Pixelblitz

What I find refreshing about your post is your courage to give Joe and others at least an idea of costs. As you've stated, "the cost of an MIS is only half the picture. An ROI needs to have both cost and savings." I couldn't agree more. If anything, savings may be the more relevant of the two. But absent either, how is a shop owner to make an intelligent buying decision?

There was a time when prospective car buyers had to talk to a salesperson to find out how much that red convertible in the showroom would set them back; when window stickers only told of "cream puffs" and "little old ladies having driven it to church on Sundays." You would think that with Google and the internet, pricing an MIS for printing should be as easy as pricing printing. So why isn't it?

Hal Heindel
 
Thank you for downloading and having a look at Morning Flight, Stephen. As I’m sure you’ve discovered, the free edition of Morning Flight is not an MIS - it will do quotes, but not job tickets or invoices, nor a host of other functions you would expect to find in a true MIS.

Yes, agreed Hal, I was basing my comments off a review of the PDF manual for the full gold edition. The Accura MIS is at a totally different level than your MIS. Each has their place and service different market segments.


What I find refreshing about your post is your courage to give Joe and others at least an idea of costs. As you've stated, "the cost of an MIS is only half the picture. An ROI needs to have both cost and savings." I couldn't agree more. If anything, savings may be the more relevant of the two. But absent either, how is a shop owner to make an intelligent buying decision?

I think that the main reason that unpublished prices are common for medium to high end MIS software is that it really requires a two way discussion between the vendor and prospect as to the prospects requirements. Modular, full featured MIS systems require configuration of components and license types, which require intimate product knowledge, which only the vendor has.

Glossary definition for POA


Stephen Marsh
 
I've been reading that a W2P system isn't as powerful as it could be without a reliable MIS backend - which does make sense.

But where do you start when you have neither?

Even an inexpensive W2P system can cost hundreds of dollars a month which can be a sizable amount of money for a small shop.. Is it worth it?

What are the various monthly (or yearly) price points for:

A decent MIS?
A decent W2P with web design and ready-made templates?
A decent integrated MIS/W2P system?

..for a small, low volume digital shop with 2-3 employees (entry level color press, 44" inkjet & laminator, color plotter, finishing, etc..)

Thanks,
Joe

Have you tried MyPRINTCloud?? Premium Web to Print and Print MIS - MyPrintCloud They have both retail stores and corporate stores and they have plenty of customisation available for skins and layouts, the editor is HTML5 also, one advantage is the integrated MIS, it has both a browser version for simple MIS and then a desktop app for more complex scenarios.

Makes the transition for staff easier by having a simple browser interface while allowing us to create more complex cost centres and reports from a management point of view.

Cost wise it is around $6000usd setup and $300usd a month support and maintenance
 
Have you tried MyPRINTCloud?? Cost wise it is around $6000usd setup and $300usd a month support and maintenance

Hi Print Portal, thank you for joining the discussion. In the interests of full disclosure, what is your connection to MyPRINTCloud?

Most cloud services are subscription pay as you go on a monthly or other basis. They are not perpetually licensed, so if you stop paying you lose access to the service and you also lose access to the historical client, quote, order and other data. If say after 6 months, would one be down around $7800 without anything to show for it? (apart from any work generated by the system)

For an online store, one may be willing to lose access to the service, however for an MIS which is driving the printer’s business, they may be rather concerned about no longer having access to their data or their print management system.

Obviously, there has been a lot of controversy with Adobe changing it’s licensing model from perpetual to pay to play subscription.


Stephen Marsh
 
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