Inkjet & Digital Printing
Blackburns of Bolton Invests in Second HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press
Tuesday 29. June 2010 - HP today announced that Blackburns of Bolton, UK, has installed its second HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press to respond to customer demands and position itself for increased web-to-print production.
A long-time user of HP Indigo presses, starting with an Indigo E-print 1000+, and re-investing regularly, Blackburns has replaced its HP Indigo press 5000 with the new seven-colour press, increasing both production capacity and print quality.
“We have been seeing a substantial growth in both print on-demand and requests for on-line printing services,” said Christian Peacock, sales and marketing director, Blackburns of Bolton. “The 75 percent increase in printing speed over the HP Indigo press 5000 has moved our capacity into a new league. We have even found that having an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press has attracted business for us.”
Blackburns of Bolton operates three websites; www.clicktocreate.co.uk is operated with partners to provide a variety of web-to-print and web commerce services. The site was launched in April 2010 and has already generated a lot of traffic and sales; new partners are always welcome and the hope is that by Christmas the site will offer a great experience to a wide audience. The company also offers www.siteprint.co.uk for personalised calendar creation, again working with partners. Blackburns main site www.blackburns.co.uk introduces the main services at Blackburns and offers customers an online ordering facility with ftp upload on the site also.
The online market is not the only sector where Blackburns has experienced growth in the current uncertain market.
“We have seen a number of jobs previously carried out by companies in-house come to us,” explained Christian. “For example, we are now printing a large number of training manuals. This is not just due to the speed and quality of printing on our new 7000 press, but also because either the resources no longer exist at the customer sites, or because they’ve learned that printing them digitally can be more cost-effective than photocopying.”
Other trends noted by Christian include an increase in personalised printing work and the development of business partnerships enabled by online facilities and a high-end digital printing capability.
“Companies that are adding value appear to be having more success than those that are merely cutting costs,” Christian concluded. “Digital printing can be an important factor in that process and we are well-positioned to help customers realise that goal.”