ZOPI Q2/2023: Another slight increase in online print prices

In both product categories, there has not been a single manufacturer that has lowered its prices compared to March 2023. This is not only due to the situation regarding raw materials: Although prices for graphic papers also fell in the second quarter, energy prices remained high despite slowing down. In addition, online printers are suffering from the current slump in consumption as a result of high inflation – they are currently recording fewer orders across the board.

General economic conditions

The overall economic situation in Germany has not changed significantly compared with the first quarter of the year. It was only in June that the ifo Institute downgraded its forecast for German economic output in the current year. It now anticipates a decline of 0.4% – but expects slight growth of 1.5% next year. "The German economy is only very slowly working its way out of recession," commented ifo’s head of economic research, Timo Wollmershäuser. This is due not least to inflation and the resulting restrained consumer and investment behaviour.

After the overall inflation rate in January and February of the year was still almost at the record level of November 2022 at +8.7%, it even fell for three months in a row in March (+7.4%), April (+7.2%) and May (+6.1%), according to the Federal Statistical Office, but rose again to +6.4% in June 2023.

By contrast, in the case of energy products, the below-average price increase seen since March continued in June due to the underlying effect from the previous year. Prices for energy products at the end of the second quarter were 3.0% higher than in the same month a year earlier, up from +2.6% in May 2023. Year-on-year, prices for solid fuels and natural gas rose particularly strongly by +26.6% and +20.8% respectively. Prices for electricity (+10.5%) and district heating (+9.3%) also increased at an above-average rate. By contrast, petroleum products were more favourable at -12.8%, especially light heating oil (-36.5%) and fuels.

Business climate in the printing industry

As far as companies in the German printing and media industry are concerned, the business situation, business climate and business expectations continue to be assessed more positively than in the second half of 2022 – albeit at a slightly lower level than three months earlier, as shown by the June economic telegram of the German Printing and Media Industries Federation (BVDM).

Compared with March (and also June of the previous year), there has been the most significant drop in the assessment of the business situation: In June, around 57% of the business leaders surveyed rated their current order backlog as "too small". 42% assessed the order situation as sufficient, while around 1% rated it as good.

Here, too, the reasons for the fall in demand are the continuing high level of inflation and the resulting stagnation in investment behaviour among German companies, which is also impacting on spending on printed advertising and communication materials.

E-commerce suffers from the decline in consumption – as do online printers 

The fact that not only companies are hesitant to invest, but also that consumer sentiment is declining among the population, is also shown by the latest figures from bevh, the German E-Commerce and Distance Selling Trade Association (Bundesverband E-Commerce und Versandhandel Deutschland), on online sales of goods.

From the beginning of April to the end of June, these fell by 12.2% to 19.17 billion euros. Looking at the first half of 2023 as a whole, the accumulated sales to date at the middle of the year (Q1 + Q2) are even around 13.7% below the comparative figure for 2022. Although this is still well above the figures for the six months before the outbreak of the corona pandemic, the current development curve is pointing downwards – and this is also being felt by the companies in the online print industry, which are currently recording fewer orders across the board than in comparative periods from 2018 to 2022.

Paper prices fall slightly again

According to Statista, paper prices are continuing to fall, but this hardly seems to make a difference. After all, at the start of the paper crisis, companies in the online print industry kept their prices constant for many months despite skyrocketing costs and only passed on the increase to customers at a later stage. Despite falling paper prices, the prices called for flyers and the ZOPI shopping cart remain high – an indication that the companies have long been under pressure from more than just this direction.

How are prices developing in online print?

Nevertheless, with their highly automated processes, B2B stores and economical production of short runs, online print companies have a different, more positive starting position than traditional print stores. The fact that they can react more flexibly to developments in the overall economy is demonstrated by the zipcon Online Print Price Index, the trend barometer developed by zipcon to monitor price trends in the online print market.

Since the beginning of the year, the zipcon Online Print Price Index has also been placed on a broader data basis by adding druckdiscount24, Primus-Print and Printkit to the companies covered. The resulting effect on average prices was already explained in the ZOPI analysis for the first quarter.

Detailed analysis of flyers

In the flyer product cluster, ZOPI looks at Vistaprint, Wir-machen-Druck, Unitedprint/print24, Onlineprinters, Flyeralarm, Saxoprint, Onlinedrucken, Redprintgroup and sourc-e, in addition to the three suppliers already mentioned. All of them were asked to print 10,000 flyers in DIN A5 format, printed in four colours 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 June 2023 after March, namely to +38.13% based on the nine suppliers previously considered. With the addition of the three new companies, the average value is naturally somewhat lower, but still stands at an impressive +29.15% in June.

In the detailed analysis, the picture is, as always, more differentiated: While Unitedprint/print24 with +87.65% in June again called up the largest recorded price increase to date for the 10,000 flyers compared to the index value from summer 2020 (March: +65.50%), Vistaprint with -2.80% marked the largest downward deviation from the index value for the second time (March: -5.43%) – even though the prices here have also been raised slightly since March. Incidentally, the prices for flyers have not fallen at any provider, only five out of twelve kept them stable.

Between the maximum upward and downward deviation from the index value, the other suppliers in June 2023 ranked in descending order as follows: sourc-e with +50.59% (March: +50.59%), Saxoprint with +48.96% (March: +35.33%), Onlineprinters with +37.67% (March: +36.99%), Redprintgroup with +34.70% (March: +34.70%), and Wir-machen-Druck with +34.28% (March: +34.28%).

Below the average price in this product cluster, despite slight price increases in some cases, were Onlinedrucken with +29.13% (March: +27.84%), Flyeralarm with +22.97% (March: +19.20%), and Vistaprint with -2.80% (March: -5.43%). The three new providers were in the single digits – however, these values refer to a starting value from summer 2022. Accordingly, the changes in prices for the 10,000 flyers were +5% for Primus-Print (unchanged from March), +1.97% for druckdiscount24 (also unchanged from March), and -0.31% for Printkit (March: -0.79%).

The biggest price jumps compared to March this year were at Unitedprint/print24 with +22.15 percentage points and Saxoprint with +13.63 percentage points.

Price development in the shopping cart also picks up

Similar to the prices for the order for the 10,000 flyers, the prices for the shopping cart have also developed. Here, the average change compared to the first survey of this product category in November 2020 was +24.94% in June 2023. In March, this value had still been +23.46%, already taking into account the new suppliers.

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). The following suppliers are considered for this product cluster: Wir-machen-druck, Unitedprint/print24, Onlineprinters, Flyeralarm, Saxoprint, Onlinedrucken, the Redprintgroup as well as druckdiscount24, Printkit and Primus-Print.

The following picture emerges from the detailed analysis: the largest percentage upward deviation from the starting value is also marked for the Unitedprint/print24 shopping cart, at +70.32%, 10.4 percentage points more than in March (+59.92%). With only +2.65%, Flyeralarm again charged roughly the same prices in June 2023 as at the start of the shopping cart ZOPI in November 2020.

The remaining suppliers that ZOPI regularly monitors for the basket developed as follows in the second quarter of 2023: Again, there was no provider that lowered prices compared to March. On the contrary, six out of ten providers charged more. In June of this year, for example, Saxoprint landed in second place with +37.96% (March: +34.87%) of the biggest increases compared to the index value, followed by Wir-machen-Druck with +37.11% (March: +37.11%), Onlinedrucken with +35.89% (March: +35.70%) and Onlineprinters with +35.67% (March: +35.03%).

Compared with March, however, the prices charged by Redprintgroup (+10.92%), druckdiscount24 (+8.83%) and Primus-Print (+4.98%) remained unchanged in June. Printkit, on the other hand, was slightly higher at +5.08%, compared with +5.00% in March.

Outlook

The economic situation in Germany – and therefore also in the (online) printing industry – will remain volatile in the coming months and beyond. Uncertainties in supply chains as well as raw material and energy costs will accompany companies for an as yet unforeseeable period. Added to this are the now noticeably curbed consumer behaviour and the renewed increase in interest rates by the European Central Bank, which, while pleasing private savers, is once again making investments more expensive for companies. The situation therefore remains tense.

Against this background, printing companies in general and online print providers in particular are still well advised to keep a close eye on developments on the markets and respond flexibly to changes. It takes patience, smart decisions, and clever self-marketing to get your company and its services noticed at all. Online printers have a real trump card up their sleeves for this very purpose, which they need to play – in the future at least as much as in the past few months.

About the ZOPI – zipcon Online Print Price Index

With the zipcon Online Print Price Index, or ZOPI for short, the Essen-based consulting company zipcon consulting has developed a trend barometer that for the first time takes a close look at price developments in the online print market. Two clusters were formed for this purpose: One looks at a standard order for 10,000 flyers in DIN A5 format, printed in four colors on both sides, on 135-gram paper, glossy. Nine online print shops were selected for the job: Vistaprint, Wir-machen-Druck, Unitedprint/print24, Onlineprinters, Flyeralarm, Saxoprint, Onlinedrucken, Redprintgroup, Primus-Print, Printkit, druckdiscount24 and sourc-e. The second cluster focuses on a shopping cart that includes brochures and business cards in addition to flyers. This basket involves the following printing companies: Wir-machen-druck, Unitedprint/print24, Onlineprinters, Flyeralarm, Saxoprint, Onlinedrucken, Primus-Print, Printkit, druckdiscount24 and Redprintgroup.

The prices are recorded on a weekly basis. On this basis, zipcon calculates the average values for each month and presents the percentage change compared to the index value. The index value for the flyer cluster is from June 2020 (July 2022 for Primus-Print, Printkit and druckdiscount24), and the index value for the shopping basket is from November 2020. ZOPI thus reflects the changes in prices in online printing over the entire period up to the present day – and puts them in the context of developments on the market and in the economy as a whole in the subsequent evaluation. A detailed look at and interpretation of the figures is provided on a quarterly basis.