Becky Douthat

Adding custom features to multi-part forms can maintain profitability. Conventional wisdom dictates abandoning a sinking ship. And, likewise, many would counsel a shift away from selling declining product lines, such as multi-part forms, in favor of growing opportunities in newer markets. A recent industry study pegged the decline of conventional forms—which includes continuous, checks, salesbooks, pegboard and short-run forms, as well as multi-parts—at approximately 7.5 percent from 2000 to 2002. During the same period, the total retail value of products such as labels, direct mail, tags, tickets, commercial and quick printing, finishing services and promotional products rose approximately 4.2 percent. It seems intuitive to

Customized, value-added traditional products remain popular and profitable. Continuous forms, unit sets, checks—not very exciting, are they? But, these traditional products—distributors' bread and butter a few decades back—have plenty of profitable life in them yet despite falling sales, said manufacturers. "Sales may be flat to steady for traditional forms, but we notice sales overall are up," said Deanna Day, brand manager for forms products at PrintXcel, Fairhope, Ala. This is due to a changing product mix, Day said. "Since 1995, we've seen a 15 percent shift from basic traditional products to specialty and value-added," she noted. Becky Douthat, vice president of National Business Forms,