Sacramento Printing Is Suffering.

I received another call today.  It is one of those bittersweet calls that tells me with a shift in the market is.  I received a call from a customer who was looking for a new Sacramento printing resource, because the Sacramento printer that they've been using for the last 10 years closed their doors.  Now you may think I'm jumping for joy on the inside as I have yet less competition when it comes to Sacramento printing firms.  However, believe it or not, most Sacramento printing shops know each other and have somewhat of a symbiotic relationship.  So when you hear that somebody who you had a friendly rivalry with for the last years is finally closing their doors, if you have any kind of heart, you don't rejoice over the fact that it.  You got a competitor gone; rather you mourn because you know that yet somebody else's dreams once and hopes are no longer going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I know that the Sacramento printing market does carry with it some stiff competition.  However, I am of the firm belief that competition is healthy.  Not just because having a competitor means that I have to stay on my toes especially when it comes to Sacramento printing, but because as I get along with many of my Sacramento printing comrades, we are each able to share vital information back and forth with each other.  So the question that you always have to ask yourself in situations like this is what happened that caused them to close their doors permanently?  Many people will tell you it is because the market has changed.  I would argue that it is in the market has changed.  It's that the competition has become closer and closer and closer than ever before.

In the 60s 70s and 80s there was no Internet, there were fewer brokers, and the entrepreneurial spirit that has gripped so many was nowhere near what it is today.  Now with cheap, low grade, and fast printing companies all over the Sacramento printing industry is suffering.  But is it really in a company the foregoing best interest to simply go with some with a printer where the printing prices the cheapest?  To fully understand this is important to realize that when we spend money outside of Sacramento.  We are spending money and giving money away outside of the Sacramento economy.  Think about your business does your business run on a global scale, a national scale, or even a statewide scale?  The odds say that if you're a Sacramento business owner, a majority of your business is dumb Sacramento businesses.  Our other companies outside of the Sacramento area, who offer the products and services that your business offers?  Does it frustrate you when people take money away from you and send it somewhere else outside the Sacramento area?  The simple truth is that if we, Sacramento business owners, are to build the Sacramento economy and the Sacramento a business economy is going to survive in a tight market like this, Sacramento businesses should be spending money with Sacramento businesses whenever and wherever possible.

I was confronted with this realization when I went and visited a clients at their luck local Sacramento restaurant.  Within the same conversation, we talked about the fact that she was using some online company out of Jamaica to do her printing.  And yet was complaining that she wasn't getting enough business herself.  I think within the course of the conversation the irony had not escaped her that she was complaining about not having enough local business and yet was sending business outside of the local demographic.  It is the same in Sacramento printing.  So many people choose to go online to save themselves a couple of dollars, and yet at the same time wonder why their business is struggling.  Imagine if we didn't go outside of the Sacramento area for any of the products or services that we needed.  Instead of the money changing in the hands that would not be spending it in Sacramento local business; The money would simply be going from place to place and helping to enrich everybody and strengthen everybody in our local economy.  The simple truth is that from a national economic standpoint, Sacramento is a mere drop in the bucket.  Sacramento business owners are spending more money now to companies well outside of Northern California, that it is nearly impossible and improbable to think that that money would ever come back into the hands of anyone in Sacramento.  So yes, Sacramento printing is a cutthroat business, but not because there are so many Sacramento printers: simply because so many people are spending their money outside of Sacramento.

So next time he needs in printing, whether business cards or post cards are brochures or flyers or banners; consider using a local Sacramento printing firm, even if it isn't SIA professional services.  It would still be better to use one of our competitors, who will pass that money around within the local economy and stimulate local economy, rather than to someone else who has no intention on helping us grow this beautiful city.

If however you would like more information on the Sacramento printing products and services that SIA professional services offers.  Please feel free to give us a call at 916-361-0792.