Zoo Printing W2P

[Kennn]

Zoo and 4over prices are ~20% higher than other local printer in Los Angeles area. I was using them when I start out my broker job a year ago but hey they do free delivery!!! hmmm 20% on $2000 order is $400, I'll pick it up then :P

[postnetnc133]

My understanding of redtag is that we the reseller would be listed or the buying customer would go to redtag and the local listed dealer (reseller) would get the sale. 4over controls the pricing and prints and handles everything. The customer thinks they are ordering from that local dealer (printer). I dont know the exacts as far as who handles the payments but I would assume 4over collects the money and cuts a check to the dealer once a month. 4over markets redtag but says it is to beneift the printer/ reseller/ dealer.

My only concern is 1. we the reseller dont get to control the pricing so no control over margins and 2 what happens over time if and when they do go retail all of these customers are now theirs. I could see once they get a big enough list of retail buyers they then set up 2 shops, 4over for wholesale and redtag or whatever for retail but all under the same parent company.

We see it all over it is hard to truly stay 100% trade only. Just like those that sell retail it is hard for them to keep their prices at a true retail. I see more and more online printers lowering their prices to almost to what many shops sell as wholesale. At the end of the day there still is little to no service. For us we offer service and several products we can turn around same day or next day if needed and now a days many people need it now not 1-2 weeks from now.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

So what's the best company to outsource with?

We were thinking of doing Zoo's premade website but I don't want to have to manually change prices...on our e-commerce sites we can do bulk updates with excel like any other normal shopping cart site.

Also, is there anyone out there that's trade only where I can integrate the selling, proofing, etc., but pick and choose different items that I want to do in house so the trade printer gets nothing and never sees those items?

[Shawnd]

My issue with going with Zoo is that we will have to support all kinds of other printing, not just what we specialize in if we go with the hands on package, I have been on this mission for the past year and still not come up with a good partner in the W2P field.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

That's a good point. We didn't mind the offerings but it makes sense that you might not want to get into certain areas.

My issue with going with Zoo is that we will have to support all kinds of other printing, not just what we specialize in if we go with the hands on package, I have been on this mission for the past year and still not come up with a good partner in the W2P field.

[Shawnd]

I am still waiting for that person to chime in on a thread somewhere saying how great it is to have Zoo's branded website and give some real world insight on how it has worked for them. I have Frank from their branded website dept. wanting to sign me up pretty bad, I got to the point where you have to pay them to move forward and have not been able to convince myself that is the direction we want to go in.

All I can think about is the time wasted having to accept peoples crappy artwork and tell them whats wrong, wait for them to resubmit it then send it to Zoo to be printed and it come back to the customer and them kick and scream it is all wrong, then who is the bad guy, ME.

If you could remove all the items but what I want to print in-house I would have jumped on Zoo's W2P a long time ago, I would even pay $2500/year for that.