The printing industry has been growing leaps and bounds over the last decade, and according to the Global Commercial Printing Market Report, its worth is projected to be $460.28 billion by 2025. There are plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs to make huge profits with smaller investments, which is the reason why people are turning towards this business.
According to some authentic reports, the best part of the printing industry is that a large number of printing businesses employ fewer than ten staff members. This is because of the automated procedures where digital printing needs fewer people to run the printing machines.
Starting your own printing business may seem overwhelming initially. However, if you follow all of the steps of this guide, you can easily prepare your business plan to start your profitable and successful printing business.
Pick a profitable niche within the printing business.
You may pick numerous products that can be custom printed for a niche market on demand. Fortunately, the opportunities are endless and the choice is yours:
- You may offer printing services for home décor or outdoor events such as printing of wall art for bedrooms, porches, and patios. Also, wall covering and murals are in demand nowadays, which is great if you are interested in printing such creative stuff.
- Organisations occasionally look for a printed marquee 3D design service to promote their business. They use these marquees for outdoor tradeshows, fundraising, and business networking events.
- You may choose to print luggage tags, custom printed tablet/laptop sleeves, passport cases, and other travel accessories.
- You may opt to print home accessories, including, but not limited to, pillowcases, duvet covers, cutting boards, placemats, mouse-pads, and much more. If you offer your customers an option of fabric printing you should definitely think about getting an Epson fabric printer.
- Since the packaging industry is growing very fast, if you are talented enough to offer awe-inspiring printing designs for different types of packages, get ready to reap huge profits.
The list goes on and on but you need to identify the area that best suits your interest and skill set your printing company is equipped with. So, carefully decide the niche you wish to get your hands on. Let’s explore further to see how to find a niche that’s both rewarding and something you feel passionate about.
Choose a perfect business name.
Choosing the name for your business is not less than an art. Be a bit descriptive without being too generic or ambiguous. Never think of using your own name as your business name. You need to register your business name so you must keep in mind the legal considerations and copyrights.
Make use of the relevant keywords without stuffing them into your business name so you need to be very creative. Don’t make it too complicated since it will not be able to easily catch the attention of your audience. So, keep it simple but elegant.
Define your target audience.
Your target audience will totally depend on your selected niche. Hence, your customers can be small, medium, large businesses or individuals who need some items printed.
For example, if you are printing home décor related items, you may be dealing with individuals and businesses alike.
In case your printing shop offers printed marquees and gazebos, you will mostly be dealing with businesses. Still, you may get orders from individuals as well.
What will be the procedures for your customers to avail your services?
You need to make the procedure seamless to serve your clients. Since we are living in the age of modern technology, it is hard to find any printing business that may not have an online presence.
Like many other printing companies, most probably, you will be receiving the orders through an online form submission where they can send you the details of items they need to get printed.
You will be sharing the mock-up designs once the client has made partial payments. Upon approval of the mock-up design, the desired items will be printed and your client will receive the order upon making the complete payment.
This is the assumed procedure you may have for your printing company. Mention all the terms and conditions clearly and verify that your clients do agree with all the terms of your business.
How to compete with your printing rivals?
“Think big to have big” should work for you if you are passionate to excel in the printing business. Your initiatives may seem like steps taken by small scale business, but you need to find your ideal competitor that can be a printing industry leader as well. So, you may act like a start-up but think like a big venture in the printing industry.
You have to stay ahead of the competition by being smarter and better in the industry. Employ the best creative designers and purchase high-quality printing equipment to offer flawless printed items to your customers.
Make the delivery process quicker than your competitors without compromising on quality. And, you must be kind enough to make the changes in your mock designs and must be ready to make the desired changes required by your clients.
All of this will help you develop awesome relationships with your clients and you may expect them to come back for more. Don’t forget to ask them to leave great reviews for the service you have offered them. This will certainly bring you more business.
Apply for the printing business license.
Depending on which country and state your printing business is located in, you have to follow the government rules and regulations to get your business registered.
Get ready to start preparing the documents and filling out a variety of forms to get yourself registered as a licensed printing business. As mentioned earlier, the process of business registration may vary in all states of Australia.
Here are some steps that you may have to follow to get the permit or license to work as a printing business:
- Submit an application for an ABN (Australian Business Number)
- Getting the name of your business registered
- Registration for taxes
- Registration of trade mark
- Application for GST and PAYG withholding with ABR (Australian Business Register)
It is always better to contact the Printing Business Association to get complete details in accordance with the laws applicable to your business.
Make your business thrive.
Provide excellent customer support, allocate your resources intelligently, go live on the web, and remember that your consistency will make your customers know how authentic you are. Though growth cannot be seen in an instant, but if you keep working hard and consistent, there’s no reason that your printing business will not thrive.
