PRODUCT PORTFOLIO: Buyers' Guide - Trade finishing.(Brief Article)

Pricing remains a sensitive issue for trade finishers and their customers. We look at the services on offer

In a struggling economy, finishing always seems to be the first sector to suffer and the last to recover. Finishers are often caught in a price squeeze between printers and their customers, and have to try to recoup the time and money lost earlier in the process. This is reflected in the fact that while many printers are nowadays accredited to the ISO9000 quality standard, hardly any trade finishers have done likewise. For years, the sector has suffered from a lack of inward investment and, with the possible exception of direct mail, there is still much evidence to suggest that finishing is a downtrodden area.

Pricing remains a sensitive issue for trade finishers and their customers, be they end users or printers themselves. Like any other service in the printing industry, good-quality finishing - especially the more specialised services - doesn't come cheap. By beating a trade finisher down on price, a buyer may well be doing himself, and the trade finishing sector as a whole, a grave disservice by forcing prices down - thereby indirectly contributing to a lack of ongoing investment. Ultimately, this means that trade finishers are either vulnerable to being pushed out of business or, at best, can't provide a full range of services, which inevitably means work will go elsewhere.

Finishing is a time-sensitive sector. It pays printers and their customers to have a healthy complement of finishers in the local area. For short-turnaround jobs, which are generally the norm, the time spent shipping consignments backwards and forwards to a non-local finisher is precious.

Ultimately it pays everybody involved in trade finishing - buyers, customers and finishers themselves - to take a long-term view on ...