Protecting Brokers Client from Print Vendor

[jtwanabe]

1. Can someone suggest a generic legal agreement (free or not) that I can use to before I give my client information to a print vendor.

2. Short of that can any print brokers tell me what they do to keep Print vendors from going around you.

Thanks

 

[Alith7]

1. Can someone suggest a generic legal agreement (free or not) that I can use to before I give my client information to a print vendor.

2. Short of that can any print brokers tell me what they do to keep Print vendors from going around you.

Thanks

1. not sure, but if a designer/broker came into my shop with something like that, I think I'd be offended.

2. Find a reputable printer that you trust. If they're so shady as to steal customers from you, it calls into question their other business practices.

---then again, we're a very moral shop i guess. we print for a lot of smaller/larger printers regularly, as well as numerous print brokers and designers. We're always very careful and keep things generic when necessary.

maybe someone else who's less "small town" minded will have more input.

 

[jtwanabe]

It's sad but I've learned the hard way that good fences make good neighbors.

 

[maynardsayswhat]

1. What are you trying to protect?

2. It's all reputation and relationships. Anyone in the trade printing world "can" screw over other printers. But do that enough and they'll be out of business right quick. Even the rumor of such practices has hurt trade printers from time to time.

 

[Stochastic]

1. Can someone suggest a generic legal agreement (free or not) that I can use to before I give my client information to a print vendor.

2. Short of that can any print brokers tell me what they do to keep Print vendors from going around you.

Thanks

Hi There.

Print consultants, as they are sometimes called, are considered "parasites" of the print industry by some commentators.

This in part is true. When searching for the best "middle-man" between your company and your print provider, make sure you choose the right consultant.

If you are designing and your client wants to source the printing themselves in the dire hope they think it will save them money, consider offering them the complete solution so that you both can be confident that their/your work will look like it is supposed to every time. This is important in retaining their business.

Ensure that the company/contractor you select has a full understanding of the whole gamut of print, including offset and digital, and how your jobs will be on different substrates and make sure you ask what controls (if any) are in the workflow to ensure consistent accuracy of future re-runs.

If the "middle-man" is unsure or is unable to provide you basic information regarding your printing revenue queries, shop around.
Typically, there should be no "color management" as such on devices, yet simply passing thru a 1:1 or Direct workflow to the printing system. Upstream, i.e in your .pdf, you can embed alot of control information that can be honored on a correctly setup system and there are many tools as a designer available at your fingertips/mouseclicks.

Today, print companies usually have a good pre-press team to ensure consistency. In terms of negotiating competitive pricing with your print provider directly, generally most companies will naturally top-down sell under the assumption that you wont know any better. Questions like quantity breaks for plates/paper etc. Tell them you have done the market research, it will make them squirm, but generally they will come to a better price.
Remember, you pay for what you get so dont be too cheap nor dont let someone "get the better of you".

Just like buying/selling a house, check around the market beforehand to get a general idea.

I hear you say " but thats the print consultants job to do the running around....", yes but instead of paying them the fee for that service to save you an hour of good legwork and relationship building, do it yourself.

The eventual cost saving of going direct to save you the percieved "hassle" of organising your print will pay off and as you are a direct customer of the print provider, your business becomes valuable to the printer and it also helps keep them "honest" as they wont want to loose your business. Also, you know what youre paying for.

The "middle-men" print consultants were utilized, markedly in the 80-90's as technology changed rather rapidly, because of the lack of print knowledge in the market at design studios, publication houses etc and were mainly used as a compromise for cost vs. time saving. Now days, most design studios and p/h's have an internal pre-press and printing manager that deals with the print provider direct, negating the need for the middle-man.

Studios, publishers and designers are becoming "smarter" with understanding the print world and it is formus like these which empower decision makers with the basic tools to decide for themselves and take ownership of the products they are producing. The advent of the internet and Web based submission is slowly eating away at the independant "parasites" market share.

Research. Talk and build relationships with your print companies, they are no longer the grumpy "offset operators" they were once thought of. Align yourself with a smart and clever pre-press operator/designer who will help you. It is in their best interests.

Todays economic market leaves little room for margins to be paid to middle-men when you can do it yourself in conjunction with decent print providers, who in-turn should educate their customer to produce the most consistent and error free printing solutions.

In short, knowledge is power.

Jeremy.

 

[imagesetting]

We all like to believe we deal with 'Trade Only' suppliers - but when some have invested heavily, and need to feed the machinery, does greed not get in the way ... I like to think not, but business is driven by profit margins.
Saying all that we all know of those slippery suppliers who crossed the line - and where are they now though - long gone.
Choose the less aggressive more stable trade suppliers - long established through reputation, it is a trust relationship.

Exhibition Display Services, Cromalin Proofing & Prepress

 

[rich apollo]

1. Can someone suggest a generic legal agreement (free or not) that I can use to before I give my client information to a print vendor.

2. Short of that can any print brokers tell me what they do to keep Print vendors from going around you.

Make sure the relationship is profitable for the printer and I'm sure they'll deal squarely with you.

Get everything in writing, so that you have a legally defensible position.

Your question makes me think that you should be speaking to an attorney. I'm afraid anything you'll get from this forum will be of questionable veracity.

 

[mattbeals]

Several companies that I have worked for have had no-compete agreements with trade and commercial printers. I agree that good fences make for good neighbors. Having said that there are a few honest and ethical trade printers that you can trust. There is one up here in the Seattle area that I would say is completely trustworthy with customer information. Of course just a few miles away there was a trade printer gone commercial that poached a lot of customers from their old trade printed jobs. I'd say find a good lawyer and have them draw up a no-compete. I don't think it is unreasonable.

 

[jtwanabe]

Looking for a generic agreement

Looking for a generic agreement

The point of this thread was to see if there was a generic agreement or one that would give some idea of what one looks like.

 

[David Milisock]

The point of this thread was to see if there was a generic agreement or one that would give some idea of what one looks like.

I know of no generic agreement, I started as a print manufacturer and evolved into a shop that buys what we couldn't manufacturer well then as the computer skills grew we became a distributor. We since have moved on way beyond print distribution but still do a couple hundred K a year.

Keep the clients name unknown if possible, do not ship direct (quality checks more than anything), know who you deal with. Be prepared to get burned and move on.

My deal with my vendors is this, THEY MUST MAKE MONEY AND I MUST MAKE MONEY, if my file is wrong I PAY. If their job is right I PAY. If they scew me I TELL EVERYONE AND CAUSE A SCENE.

For the most part after 21 years I have about 6 regular vendors I can count on for 99.9% quality all the time. I have a couple internet vendors that are just HOT STUFF!!

 

[bkaupp]

I am no lawyer, but I can't imagine there would be an agreement that would be 100% enforcable, especially when you factor in marketing and free will/market.

I agree with the 'find and build a good relationship with one or more printers' approach. We are a digital shop that outsources any large offset or special print needs. We have two local offset printers we deal with, neither are 'trade only' but in over 15 years dealing with the one printer we have had no problems, and so far no problems in the last few years with the second (we use two so we can have at least two quotes to make sure we are getting reasonable prices).

We also sometimes source from an online 'trade only' printed from the other side of the country, shipping included pricing on some things is cheaper and we have even less worry of that printer poaching any customers.

We have recently started outsourcing some of our digital printed vinyl instead of referring customers, we found a local sign shop and they like the arrangement because we send them the files ready to print/cut and essentially leave all the headache to us. They make money and get more work, we make money everyone wins. So far its been a great relationship.

The relationship is key, and it may take time to find the right printer or printers to work with. Agreements are great but if not iron clad (which can be costly for a lawyer to draw up) they can be thwarted or taking someone to court could cost more then any work you get out of it.

 

[discountprintingservice]

baffled with similar dilima of trade printer going retail

baffled with similar dilima of trade printer going retail

I really am baffled myself...I am a print shop that prints in house but also sends work out that is beyond our in house capability.

Here is my delima:

There is a huge trade printer which I won't mention their name ((3+1)over.com) that pushed advertising in a lot of printing trade magazines as being trade only...

One ad in particular that ran for a long time really sticks out in my mind. It consists of 3 people in T-shirts one says trade printer, middle one says retail printer, and last one says print buyer. The ad show the trade printer & print buyer shaking hands behind the retail printers back.

In big letters at the top of the ad it read "we won't go behind your back"....well now they have with a retail web site, which ironically I found out about from my client. I won't spend a dime with them ever again.

Now, this huge trade printer who has all of us printers customers information and files can now market directly to our customers if they wanted to and bypass us all together....scary isn't it?

In addition, I have always thought that this particular trade printer hurt the industry with ridiculously low prices and started what I call printing price wars.

Best example is a card that most print shops sell for around $50-75 for 1000, these so called printers who have no equipment no overhead and work out of their house sell it for $20...

Trade printers like this is really hurting the industry, and their not the only ones....

I suggested a class action law suit against this particular one to a trade organization...

 

[mattbeals]

I'm not a lawyer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express. If 2+2over.com was acting as a trade printer exclusively and then opened a retail store front they certainly are welcome to. If they took their trade printing customers (you and your clients) and kept that separate and didn't directly market to them I can see where they would be of the opinion that it is "safe". If however they did market to your customers (as is the case with one local trade printer I know of) I can see where you would have a toe, maybe a leg, to stand on. For example, now that 6-2over.com has as retail site and your customer went to their site to order your customer made the choice. But if 7-3over.com marketed to your customer then I'd be pretty hacked off.

I guess it comes down to this; did they (square root of 16 over.com)directly market to your customer(s) bypassing you or did your customers go to them on their own?

 

[discountprintingservice]

A blind package was shipped to end customer and some how (2+2)over.com was on the box, they went to the website and saw a link to the redtagprintsale.com their retail site. As soon as I heard about it I went to their site. I hit the roof! I called and asked for the President but have yet to get a call back. I have heard from others that they are doing direct mail marketing with postcards.....

 

[mattbeals]

Yeah, that's pretty unethical. I'd be all over that...

 

[discountprintingservice]

I call one trade magazine and talked to the managing editor & a trade organization president, apparently from what I was told the retail site has been online for about a year and most of the franchise print companies supposedly are banding together to boycott them, it seems like everyone who knows about it is pissed off and refuses to buy from them anymore...the magazine wants to make it know to all print shops but is worried about legal ramifications

I think the problem here is this one trade printer is so big they think they can't be hurt by going retail....when i talked to someone at the red tag site they reply was "do you know how much business you are losing to places like vista print? We're going after that market to help printers like you"....I had some choice words for them and them hung up....

 

[[email protected]]

Zoo printing had to settle with 4over.com because they stole their customer base files.

Why is everyone not saying 4over.com?

 

[Nathan]

I use a standard data protection and confidentiality agreement. It specifically mentions approaching clients. of course, these types of agreements are generally just scare tactics...