Hello guys and girls! I've been a long term lurker on the forum and have found it exceptionally useful in helping guide some of my business decisions!
I work for a leading online picture framer (in the UK) and we've had a large proportion of our customers request or show an interest in us offering printing services (yay
)!
We've just taken delivery of a brand new Epson 9900, and hope to order a few more once we've proven the concept. We plan to allow our customers to upload their pictures for us to print and frame.
Our customers come from all walks of life. We'll receive hundreds of orders a day from stay at home mums who want a holiday picture framing as well as from professional photographers who require exhibition ready products (and everything in between).
We've identified that we want 4 papers. 2 mid range papers and 2 higher end papers. This should allow us to cater for a large majority of customers whilst keeping our production systems efficient.
In each category, mid range and higher end, we'd like 1 textured and 1 luster/pearl. We're staying away from glossy because they'll all sit behind a glazing.
We've identified (mostly thanks to the discussions on this forum) 3 of 4 papers, but would love your recommendations too! We're still very open minded and are willing to chop and change our offering if we receive other recommendations that make a good sense.
The 4 papers we've identified thus far are:Mid range - luster/pearl = Epson Premium Luster Photo Paper, 260gsm; 44" x 30.5m @ £5.87 per sq/m
Mid range - textured = undecided (we can't seem to find a paper priced at around £5-6 per sq/m that's textured)
High end - luster/pearl = Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper PHOTO RAG PEARL 320gsm 44" x 12m @ £18.72 per sq/m
High end - textured = Hahnemuhle Matt Fine Art Texture Paper GERMAN ETCHING, 310gsm 44" Roll x 20m @ £13.87 per sq/m[/li][/list]
Our decision making process takes into account:General paper performance
Ease of damage (we don't want papers which damage easily & are easy to handle)
Must be available on a 44" roll
We'd like well known branded paper
Price - there must be an obvious difference between the medium and high end ranges
Popularity - we'd like to offer papers which photographers and artists consider a 'go to' media
We'd like to stay away from papers which soak up ink like a sponge - for cost reasons again!
Thanks in advance people!
Paul
