I bet we caught your attention with that headline.

Yes – a web-to-print solution can save your business significant money (and actually help make your life easier). It’s a no-brainer if your business has multiple retailers, franchises, office locations, restaurant locations, or distributors.

But first, what is web-to-print? Basically, web-to-print software is a personalized online storefront that hosts your company’s marketing materials and allows users to customize, order, proof, and print, all in one place.

Here are five ways that a web-to-print portal can save your business money.

1. Lower Product and Supply Chain Costs

When you upload any items to your portal, you choose certain vendors to produce your collateral and other materials. This way, with your designs and products approved in advance, you’ll be able to set a contract price with your vendors. You and your printer will both save money with a contract (a win-win), and it will make the ordering process go faster since you’ve both already approved products, printing costs, and design standards.

With the improved supply chain, we’ve found that greater working relationships develop between customer and vendor (and sometimes they become BFFs).

2. Improved Control and Visibility

With a web-to-print portal, your marketing department will be able to choose which of your employees have access to the portal, as well as how much those users can see once they log in.

You’ll even be able to set spending limits or limit the number of items that can be ordered.

In addition, you’ll have improved visibility to see who is spending money, how much they’re purchasing, and which items they’ve ordered, all from one place. The outcome is added savings from being able to ensure you don’t go over budget and knowing from reporting and analytics where to go for potential savings.

3. Save Paper

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had to throw away perfectly good marketing materials. It doesn’t feel so good. The good news is, with a portal, you’ll be able to order and print small quantities on-demand instead of ordering in bulk. This reduces printed inventory and helps save the earth, which is a win in our book.

On average, the amount of paper saved by organizations that adopt web-to-print can result in saving thousands of dollars. That would leave plenty leftover to fund your company’s holiday ugly sweater contest or fuel more digital marketing. Your choice.

4. Time Savings

You know it’s true that time is money, and having your marketing team and graphic designers make basic updates to collateral is a poor use of their time and company money. With a portal, you can save on both by taking those tasks off their plates. Reducing the opportunity costs of your marketing team to focus on future initiatives will be critical to long-term growth.

You’ll also save time on the ordering process. Instead of having to get on a phone call during business hours, wait for a proof, give feedback and approval, and wait for the order to ship, you’ll be able to purchase with one click, get an instant digital proof, and approve the order. You’ll be able to do any of this, 24/7, without needing to speak to a print rep. The increased utility of this process will allow you to do more with the team you have, which saves you from unneeded hiring costs.

5. Fewer Errors

In addition to saving time, you’ll save money from avoiding costly errors. If your locations have to edit their marketing materials without a graphic designer, there’s a huge chance that they’ll make a costly mistake, and that’s not good for anyone. Portals make it easy for your locations to make basic changes to your marketing materials that your marketing team will be able to approve before it goes to print.

This could save you from making the same mistake Macy’s made in 2013. They sent out a mailer in Texas advertising a diamond necklace originally worth $1,500. Instead of the mailer stating that it was on sale for $497 like it was supposed to be, the advertisement listed it at $47. Not a bad price if you’re in the market for a diamond necklace, but not a great profit margin if you’re a Macy’s executive.

Having pre-approved marketing materials helps reduce errors and save companies money on their annual printing budgets.

If your company can benefit from any of these potential savings, it’s never been better to learn more about how much time and money web-to-print portals can save you.

To help you evaluate the benefits for your company, click below to take a quick needs assessment and we’ll send you a free guide on which web-to-print portal would work best for you.