- Print Innovation Asia
Indonesia’s Biggest Retail Digital Printer Buys Web-to-Print Software
PT Suburmitra Grafistama, better known as Subur in the printing industry, bought a B2C and B2B web-to-print solution from RHS Asia. Having searched for an online eCommerce solution for some time, Subur found the features of the new web-to-print to be very comprehensive for its retail business.
The web-to-print comes complete with a B2C storefront which is mobile responsive, and also has an intuitive and easy-to-use online designer tool for customers to design their own prints using the thousands of design templates made available to them.
Other than the B2C function, it comes with the ability to create unlimited B2B corporate stores for corporate customers to easily order prints from the printer. Every corporate store can be personalised so the products, pricing and design templates can be unique for each corporate customer. The B2B solution comes standard with features such as order approval plans, inventory management and variable data printing.
About the Company
Subur started out humbly as a photocopy centre in 1977 where they operated out of a small retail shop servicing walk-in customers. They then ventured into offset printing in 1983 when the offset market grew at a fast pace, and subsequently moved into digital printing in 1996 as the printing industry transitioned into print on demand.
Soon after they bought their first digital press, their business became affected during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis which brought many businesses to a standstill. Nonetheless, Subur weathered the financial crisis and continued their impressive growth to become the largest retail digital printer in Indonesia.
Today Subur is the proud owner of 11 outlets across Jakarta, with 7 of the outlets each having a HP Indigo in-store. Always at the forefront of technology, Subur is known in the industry to invest in advanced digital presses. Naming a few, Subur was the first in Southeast Asia to own the HP Indigo 7900, HP Indigo 10000 and Fuji Xerox’s iGen 150. Other machines supporting their core printing business are HP Scodix 1200TM for digital Spot-UV finishing, HP Latex for wide format prints and Canon C1000 digital press for scanning and black/white print jobs.
The Move Towards Online Printing
Subur 2nd generation printer Mr Dede (centre) with Mr Denny (right) and their latest HP Indigo 10000 digital press.
In addition to investing in new machines, Subur is also a firm believer of having good software solution to support daily operations. They upgraded their customised eCommerce store with a new web-to-print solution from RHS Asia.
Subur’s 2nd generation printer, Mr Dede said, “When we first launched our customised eCommerce store a few years back, the response wasn’t too good as the market was still relatively new towards ordering prints online.” “We faced problems such as poor internet connectivity, lack of colour proofs and many customers still reverted back to in-store payments or bank transfer.”
“Today is different. We now have popular online platforms just as Go-Jek and Tokopedia, and they form a very important part of our daily lives. Similarly, we cannot neglect how technology can affect buyer behaviour for our printing products. Printers need to evolve, and not stay in the safe zone. Once you stay in your safe zone for too long, you will find it a challenge to meet the needs of today’s ever-changing customers,” he continued.
“At Subur, we are always changing and trying out new technologies. Which was why we had decided to put more focus towards online printing again and purchased our new web-to-print solution from RHS Asia.”
Web-to-Print as a New Business Opportunity
The cloud-based web-to-print solution can deploy both B2C and B2B storefronts without the need to invest in any hardware infrastructure. The back-end administrative portal can be accessed by multiple retail outlets at the same time to pick-up customer orders. Print orders can also be allocated to designated print branches to facilitate the pick-up of orders by the customers.
With an easy-to-use content management system, web pages, web banners, products and pricing can be easily managed by the employees of the company. Marketing departments can also make use of email and SMS notifications to update their customers on order status and tap on integrated third-party solutions such as Mailchimp to create electronic direct mailers (EDMs) to keep their customers updated on new products and store promotions.
The web-to-print solution is also a good print broker management system where print brokers and design houses can be allocated into a discount group to automatically receive rebates on their printing upon signing-in to their accounts. The web-to-print can also be used as a prepaid solution for print brokers to top-up print credits, and to use these print credits for their purchases.
Subur also intends to expand into corporate markets with the B2B online procurement solution. Authorised employees of the company can log in specially created corporate stores to reorder their namecards, booklets, training manuals and marketing materials. This saves a lot of time as users can immediately approve the artwork online, eliminating the need for designers to chase after artwork approvals.
Mr Dede said, “We find the web-to-print solution from RHS Asia to be very complete and has all the features we require in one solution. With Subur going online, we can service our customers better and make it easier for them to order and collect from our retail stores.”
Subur aims to simplify the print ordering process with an ‘order online and pickup from store’ concept in the upcoming launch of its eCommerce platform.
First published in the June 2018 issue of Print Innovation Asia.
