Low Risk, High Gains From Business Cards

Business card production gets faster, cheaper and easier online

By Sharon R. Cole and Demian Faunt

IT'S NOT EASY to trace the history of the business card. Having established an almost icon status, not many people can remember a time when its appearance has deviated too far from a 2x31&Mac218;2&Mac253; slice of white, plate-stock paper. A seemingly simple construction, these handy cards were known in the printing industry for creating tedious work that reaped little reward. In fact, many manufacturers and distributors classified them as an add-on sale.

But times have changed, and those in the forms business are being sold on the idea that it's just not your father's business card—or print job—anymore.

This new attitude toward business card production has been brought on by, none other than, technological advancements. Thanks to the long arm of the Internet, a once time-consuming and costly project is now faster, cheaper and easier.

"Business cards haven't really been a product that we marketed alone. Generally we've looked at them as an add-on sale, so we handled them as a program rather than just a business card order," said Tony Intagliata, vice president of sales for the Maryland Heights, Missouri-based Jerome Group. "But the Internet is changing the whole method of how business cards are produced."

And the change is for the better, according to most in the printing world.

Bill Breed, president, Megabyte Express, Austin, Texas, converted to online card production a few months ago and touts the new system as being super efficient. For him, the most attractive difference is the fact that manufacturers, distributors and customers need not spend enormous amounts of time faxing revisions and corrections back and forth.

"Online ordering has become a huge time-saver for us by making production a simple and select process that takes half the time of traditional printing processes," Breed noted. In the past, he explained, his company would first receive the customer's specifications for new cards. That information would then be faxed to the manufacturer who had to typeset it. Then the manufacturer would check its typesetting by faxing a copy of it back to the customer. If there was a correction, the cycle would begin again.