The obsolescent sales force
Traditionally, print was sold by sharp-suited wide boys who couldn’t see beyond bonuses and their flash company car. Yet a growing band of printers prefer to sell through an online storefront, offering templates for posters, point of sale material and mechanisms for customers to submit jobs online. Early adopters, Fespa suggests, (http://blog.fespa.com/online-storefronts-the-future-for-print-marketing) believe they will take all their orders this way in future. It may be too soon to fire the sales force but the success of some storefronts suggests many printers need to shed their inhibitions about the internet – too many sites lack content and are rarely updated – or risk extinction.
