settle at a high level

and sales of graphic papers have also fallen by a good 30% year-on-year. Perhaps because there are fewer print shops? Because according to the BVDM, the printing industry started the new year with just under 6,900 companies - a decline of 3.1% overall, driven primarily by fewer production companies in the newspaper market, but also among traditional print shops.

Online print companies have coped better with the challenges of the last three years compared to many classic print service providers and have recovered more quickly. In particular, the top 5 - Cewe, Flyeralarm, Cimpress, Onlineprinters and Celebrate - were able to significantly increase their sales last year and, according to estimates by zipcon consulting, their combined sales sourc-e. All of them were asked to print 10,000 flyers in DIN A5 format, printed in four colors on both sides and on 135 g glossy paper. The average price increase for this order had reached a provisional high of 28.77% in November 2022 - which would have climbed even higher in March, to +33.22% based on the previous nine suppliers. However, the addition of the three new companies pushes the average value down somewhat, as already described, to +25.43%. hBetween these two extremes, the other providers sort themselves out in March 2023 in descending order as follows: sourc-e with +50.59% (December 2022: +29.20%), Onlineprinters with +36.99% (December 2022: +31.70%), Saxoprint with +35.33% (December 2022: +34.00%), Redprintgroup

How are prices developing in online printing?

But back to the first quarter of 2023: The Zipcon Online Print Price Index, or ZOPI for short, is a trend barometer that takes a close look at price developments in the online print market, thus providing a more detailed overview of the market. It is important to note that the index does not focus on the sales figures of the groups, but rather on the prices charged by the most important online print providers for various product clusters.

Looking at the details, the picture is more mixed: While Unitedprint/print24 called up the largest recorded price increase to date for the 10,000 flyers in March with +65.50% compared to the index value from summer 2020 (December 2022: +58.12%), Vistaprint again marked the largest downward deviation from the index value with -5.43% (December 2022: -12.43%).

New suppliers in ZOPI

The newly considered companies (druckdiscount24, Primus-Print and Printkit) have an impact on the average values, which without the new providers would have reached a new high of +33.22% in March 2023, especially in the flyer product cluster, but even including the additional data are only a few percentage points lower at 25.43%. Here, the slightly lower paper and energy prices do not yet seem to have had a direct impact on the online print price.

The situation is different for the shopping cart: here, the average price in both cases - without the new providers (+25.98%) and with the new providers (+23.46%) - is below the peak value from November 2022 (+34.97%). However, a look at the individual online printers is more exciting.

Detailed view of flyers

In the Zipcon Onlineprint Price Index, twelve providers were thus considered for the first time for the first quarter of 2023: In addition to the three already mentioned, these are: Vistaprint, Wirmachen-Druck, Unitedprint/print24, Onlineprinters, Flyeralarm, Saxoprint, Onlinedrucken, Redprintgroup and with +34.70% (December 2022: +21.13%), Wir-machen-Druck with +34.28% (December 2022: +39.10%), and Onlinedrucken with +27.84% (December 2022: +28.41%). The latter two have thus actually lowered their prices slightly compared with the end of last year.

Below the new average price in this product cluster were Flyeralarm with +19.20% (December 2022: +18.43%) and Vistaprint with -5.43% (December 2022: -12.43%). The three new providers were in the single digits - however, these values refer to a starting value from the summer of 2022. Accordingly, the changes in the prices for the 10,000 flyers were +5% for Primus-Print, +1.97% for druckdiscount24 as well as -0.79% for Printkit.

The biggest price jumps compared to December 2022 have occurred at sourc-e, Redprintgroup and Unitedprint/print24, while in the same period the prices at Wir-machenDruck, Onlinedrucken and Printkit have slightly decreased.

Price development in the shopping cart shows a slight downward trend

The prices for the shopping cart have developed differently than the prices for the order for the 10,000 flyers. Here, the average change compared to the first survey of this product category in November 2020 was +23.46%. However, it must also be remembered here that the addition of three new suppliers has pushed the figure down slightly. However, even without the "newcomers," the average change in price in March 2023 would have been +25.98%, lower than the December figure (+33.46%).

In addition to the 10,000 flyers in DIN A5 format, the shopping basket also includes brochures (32 pages, DIN A4, stitched, printed on both sides) and business cards (4/4 color, without finishing). Ten suppliers have been considered for this product cluster since the new year: In addition to the three "newcomers", these are: Wirmachen-druck, Unitedprint/print24, Onlineprinters, Flyeralarm, Saxoprint, Onlinedrucken and the Redprintgroup.