Here is the source page for the original infographic by Intuit.
How Small Businesses See The Necessary Evil Of Printing
Printing is a part of everyday life for most businesses, especially small businesses. Whether it be receipts, in-office memos, or big promotional fliers and posters, nearly every business prints, which can cost from between one and three percent of its annual revenue!
Cost Perspective
The costs of printing should seem obvious. In addition to the necessary hardware, the average business runs through one hundred and fifty pounds of paper annually, not to mention toner and ink. The high price of ink is a common complaint, and rightly so; humble Inkjet ink costs seven times as much its equivalent volume of vintage champagne!
Highest Costs
The most common costs of printing are: printer cartridges and their rapid replacement, printer paper and its all-too frequent jams, and wasted ink. Given these expenses, it is understandable that some small businesses have tried to cut costs by not printing in color.
Cutting color to skip costs, however, can limit the undoubted benefits of color printing in business. An overwhelming majority of small business owners agree that color ink yields more impressive images that can attract new customers and help customers better remember documents and presentations. Apart from the obvious eye-grabbing nature of bright color, printing outside the black and white range makes a company appear more vibrant and successful, which increases the reputation and helps yield the other benefits.
Increase Presence Online
Another way businesses are cutting printing costs is through in increased online presence, but there are still some things that should still be physically printed. Business cards, listings in the yellow pages, mailers, newspaper ads, fliers, posters, brochures, banners and coupons can all help increase visibility locally just as much or more than an online presence, which makes it unlikely for these expenses to go away anytime soon.
When printing, companies should certainly bear in mind that quality trumps quantity. About ninety percent of small business owners believe that the quality of a business’ printed materials reflect that business’ success to some degree. Perhaps this is why half of small business owners think they spend about the right amount on printing, with an additional third thinking they spend too little.
Still, the costs of owning and operating printers for commercial printing can be prohibitive for small businesses, who often turn to professional printing services. What is fascinating is that nearly eighty-five percent of these printing businesses are small businesses themselves, with annual sales of three million dollars or less.
These small commercial printers stand on shaky ground, however. While fifty percent of these businesses saw their sales grow in 2010, and even more expected this trend to continue into 2011 and beyond, the slow recovery of the economy, rising costs of operating a business, and inconsistent sales means that these companies are hardly printing money.
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