Print-On-Demand Isn't Just For Books

Print-on-demand can be used for anything that is printed or copied. Most people know the term in relation to books, usually those that are independently published. They order a book through an online store, a center prints one copy of the book, and then the center mails the copy of the book to the person who ordered it. 

Print-on-demand works essentially the same way for anything that you can print or that you could put through a copy machine. They have the templates on file, and when an order comes in, they print what's needed. Whether the printing will have limits like X number of brochures minimum is up to the center. But many do not have these limits; they will print and ship only what is really needed.

All the Work Is Handled by a Fulfillment Center

With print-on-demand, all the printing and shipping is done by the fulfillment center. You edit the documents and send changes to the center so they'll have the latest versions, but other than that, the center handles printing, bundling, binding, boxing, and everything else needed to get the documents to whatever shipping partner they're using.

Reduce Waste Should Your Documents Change

If you have a stockpile of printed documents, and you make a vital change in the templates for those documents – think changing the hours for a company in a brochure, or fixing a terrible error that was causing embarrassment – you then have a bunch of old printed documents that are no longer up to date and no longer suitable for distribution. In many cases, you can recycle the documents. But if the papers have certain coatings or types of materials on them like foil embellishments or finishes, the paper would not be recyclable. Instead, it would be a waste.

Using a print-on-demand service through a fulfillment center allows the customer who is ordering to print documents as needed. In fact, they can print a few documents at a time, which means you get to keep less of a stockpile on hand for future distribution (you may still want some because your company will no doubt have times when it wants to hand out information at events, for example, but you won't have to keep boxes and boxes of copies on hand to mail to anyone who requests the documents). If you have to change the template in a way that makes the already printed documents obsolete, then you have much less waste to deal with. And, even if you're already using paper that's totally recyclable, print-on-demand still saves energy because recycling paper does use power. The less you need to recycle or toss in the trash, the better.

Reach out to a fulfillment center to learn more.