Mandatory Questions to Ask your Catalog Printer

There are some things that you just MUST ask that catalog printer. These are the crucial mandatory questions that you must ask to make sure that you are doing business with the right kind of printing service. For the sake of your catalogs, you must try and ask ALL these questions at once. With the right information and specifics about that printing service, it should then be easy to judge if you hired the right service to create your specific kind of color catalogs. So read the questions below and discover why it is important to actually ask them.

1. Do you have service or quality guarantees? – Always ask first if they have “guarantees”. Service or quality guarantees are the expression of a company’s confidence about their products or services. So try and see if you can determine what specific guarantees those the catalog printers offer their customers.

Quality guarantees are of course a good bet, and satisfaction guarantees are okay, but it is better to go for the ones with actual quality guarantees. These are almost always legally binding, so you will be feeling safe and sound with your orders once you confirm that these guarantees are present.

2. Do you give bulk discounts? – Next, ask that catalog printer if they give bulk discounts. This should be a pretty standard practice for most printing services. Bulk discounts is basically the discount given when you order A LOT of pieces of a certain kind of print. The more pieces of catalogs you print, the less the cost per piece of catalog you should get.

So definitely, try to ask if the printer gives out bulk discounts. If they don’t then that printing company is actually not worth printing with. You should try to get a more professional one with standard wholesale catalog printing discounts instead.

3. Can I customize the material options? – It might be wise to also ask about the material options for catalog printing. More specifically, try to see if you can customize and set your own choices when it comes to the paper materials, the inks, the binding, the coatings and the other minor choices when it comes to catalog printing.

The more options you have and the more customization control that you have in printing, the better that printing service is for you. So do not forget to ask about these customization options. Believe me, it will be good for you to know exactly what they offer.

4. Do you deliver? – Delivery services are great because they save you a lot of travel time and worry when ordering something. So for your catalog printing service, it is best to also ask if they also deliver orders. Most of the best and professional catalog printing services offer delivery services in a wide area.

In fact, the best ones use couriers all over the country, giving them a nationwide reach for catalog delivery. If the printing service does not have any kind of delivery services like this, then it is not worth working with. So make sure you ask first if they deliver prints. If not, then you should not really waste time working with them.

5. How fast is the turnaround time? – Lastly, try to ask about turnaround times. How fast can the printer work through printing orders? If your catalogs are set to be finished for more than a week, then that is a bit long (unless you are printing thousands upon thousands of catalogs). The best printers should be able to process a standard batch of catalogs within 3-5 days depending on the complexity of the order.

So see how fast they can print catalogs, ask them the standard turnaround times. If it is more than a week for a typical 50 piece batch, then either they have lots of jobs on the table or just plain unprofessional. Make sure that you hire the printer that will of course accommodate your schedule for printing.

So make sure that you ask all these questions to your printing company. Believe me, it is best to know all these so that nothing goes wrong with your catalog printing.