Last week’s Quick Poll at PrintBuyersOnline.com yielded some very interesting conclusions. . .from what was said, and what was left unsaid. We asked our print buyer membership how likely they would be to purchase printing from suppliers located overseas (or outside their country of operation). An overwhelming majority, 80%, said it was “not at all likely” and only 12% replied it was “somewhat likely.”

We turned the tables on our print supplier members and asked them if they had lost any business to print suppliers located outside the country. 45% said “none that they knew of” and not one print supplier said it was enough to force them to change their business.

Only 25 print buyers and 22 print suppliers participated in these polls, which is the lowest response rate we have ever had. At first I thought there might have been some mistake and checked to see if we experienced a technical problem with our server. Having confirmed there was no IT issue, I now believe the majority of our members simply didn’t care enough about the question to bother answering.

But consider some of the comments of the few that did participate:

”Tight deadlines and intricacy of my clients projects make it impossible to send work abroad.”

“The one time a printing was brokered (not our choice) to an out-of-country printer, it was almost impossible to get up-to-date information on timelines, etc. It was an important piece - and we held our breath the whole time worrying about it. I don’t want to do that again and am definitely making sure we are not dealing with brokers in the future.”

“Overseas printing leaves you at the mercy of customs agents in addition to freight companies, neither of which care what our in-home date is.”

“I’d rather go without than purchase anything outside of our country.”

There were only two comments received from print suppliers, one having lost a catalogue to China and another who stated, “We are a small commercial printer (under $2M in sales) and we have lost about $50,000-$75,000 in sales to China.”

Whether you agree with the above comments or not, you have to admit this is a polarizing topic. Don’t you think?

What are your experiences with or thoughts on the issue of globalization of the printing industry? Post a comment below.