By Ed Avis
Are you feeling pretty good about your business at the moment? You have lots of company. An APDSP survey this week showed that business has been significantly better in 2021 versus 2020 (not a big surprise given COVID), and that optimism about 2022 is high.
“I’m pretty optimistic – business will be much better” was the most popular response to the question about how respondents think 2022 will be – 73 percent of them chose that answer. Another 20 percent are even more optimistic – they chose the response “I’m very optimistic – business will be much better.”
As far as this year is concerned, scanning service apparently was the best growth driver. About 13 percent of respondents said their scanning business was up more than 50 percent this year, and another 44 percent said it was up, but by less than 50 percent. Large-format color graphics was the next most successful growth category, with 60 percent of respondents saying business was up but less than 50 percent. Digital services, such as archiving and digital downloads, also saw solid growth, with 7 percent of respondents reporting more than 50 percent increase and another 40 percent reporting growth of less than 50 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, small-format printing took a hit – 38 percent of respondents said their business in that category dropped this year, though by less than 50 percent. About the same percentage said small-format sales were flat. CAD printing was the next biggest loser – about 36 percent of respondents said sales were down in that category. However, interestingly, 43 percent of respondents reported an increase in CAD printing, so there’s definitely diversity in the results in that business.
While COVID’s overall effect on the reprographics business has lessened, some reprographics shops are still profiting from COVID-related work. About 44 percent of respondents have done some COVID-related graphics printing in the last three months, and about 12 percent have created “sneeze guards” or other such dividers.
These are preliminary results from the survey – look for another article in the next issue of APDSP Today that includes some analysis of other questions in the survey, such as what major concerns the industry is facing. We definitely invite you to complete the survey if you haven’t done so yet. Click here to access the survey.