Survey Research Spotlights the New Formula for Roll-to-Roll Profitability

Roll-to-roll wide-format printing devices’ fast output speeds, high-quality output, and ability to accommodate a wide range of flexible substrates enable print providers to overcome numerous challenges and achieve operational success. Depending on the model, roll-to-roll devices can print with dye-sublimation, solvent, latex, aqueous, or UV inks.

A special NAPCO Research report uses key findings from Who Buys Wide-Format Display Graphics: How, from Whom, and Why to pinpoint the opportunities that UV wide-format roll-to-roll printing devices deliver. The research study identified productivity and application versatility as essential attributes of the success of organizations printing on wide-format devices, both areas where roll-to-roll, UV wide-format printers excel.

The report, The New Formula for Roll-to-Roll Wide-Format Profitability, combines quantitative survey results with commentary from wide-format providers who have adopted Canon’s Colorado roll-to-roll wide-format printing systems with UVgel technology. (For purposes of this report, Canon UVgel technology falls under the UV ink category.) The device offers providers a strong competitive edge because of its quick machine setup, media capabilities, volume capacity, and high-quality output.

7 Report Key Findings

The report aligns survey findings with the benefits of roll-to-roll printing devices to present the following key findings:

• Key Finding 1: Sign and display graphic customers prefer providers that offer a variety of products. Roll-to-roll printers can deliver that variety.
• Key Finding 2: Roll-to-roll production helps to improve profit margins in a fragmented and competitive market.
• Key Finding 3: Roll-to-roll delivers what buyers want most: consistently high print quality.
• Key Finding 4: Roll-to-roll offers the production speed needed to meet buyers’ demands for quick turnarounds.
• Key Finding 5: Roll-to-roll opens the door to new product offerings and broader revenue opportunities.
• Key Finding 6: Buyers believe in color certification. So should more providers.
• Key Finding 7: Roll-to-roll wide-format printing is sustainable wide-format printing.

In addition, to back the survey findings, the report features the experiences of providers that print wide-format applications on Canon’s Colorado roll-to-roll wide-format devices with UVgel technology.

Giving Customers an Edge

Companies with UV roll-to-roll wide-format devices are finding that their technology gives them an edge for breaking into high-growth markets. This comes both from attracting new customers with new products and from increasing their share of existing customers in the same way.

In Mesa, Arizona, Jeff Burris, CEO of Group Imaging, a company that specializes in wide-format graphics for church-sponsored youth organizations, says that with his Colorado UVgel roll-to-roll printer, “We can turn and burn photo-quality banners that are highly durable, and we’re going to be able to compete with the online providers. We can put banners in the hands of our customers at such a great price point that it will lead them back to us for the more profitable, more detailed products that we do.”

Burris also reports another important benefit of output printed on the Colorado is durability. He found out just how tough the cure was when he rubbed down the surface of a Colorado print with acetone — a harsh solvent that smeared the ink on a print from a different wide-format device but did no harm at all to the print from the Colorado.

“The end result of that is that I can put up wallpaper in a venue, and I don’t have to worry about people damaging it with cleaning solvents,” Burris says. “I also know that if they get a Sharpie mark on the wallpaper, they can wipe it right off. This has taken the knot out of my stomach, having this printer.”

Read the Report

Access the full report to discover:

• How roll-to-roll production helps to improve profit margins in a fragmented and competitive market
• New product offerings and broader revenue opportunities
• The experiences of print providers that print wide-format applications on Canon’s Colorado roll-to-roll wide-format devices with UVgel technology

Download the research report to find out how roll-to-roll wide-format devices can meet customer demands and business objectives.