In my early days in print-on-demand, I made a mistake: I gave away too much flexibility in a major retail deal—and it cost us. Too many options. Too many queues. Too much batching complexity. And profitability quietly eroded. In this week’s video, I share what that experience taught me—and why every POD business should do a full product range review every six months. It’s the simplest way to stay in your sweet spot and protect margin. Go well.
Transcript
In my early days in print-on-demand, I made a rookie mistake. I landed a series of major retail contracts, big-name retailers where we were delivering both the front-end editor and also the full-print manufacturing solution as well. And in negotiating those deals, I gave away too much flexibility, too many custom product options, too many SLA exceptions and special shipping rules. The result was we ended up with too many queues, too many batching scenarios and a level of complexity that started at these inter-profitability. And what I learned from that experience is that you have to be ruthless about reviewing your product range. Every six months, you need to take a step back, tear the range apart, look at what you’re really making by volume, by quantity, by batch pattern, by accessorisation, by geography, and find your sweet spot. The combinations that drive the efficiency and the keep batching fat and productive. And wherever possible, standardised to achieve common batching techniques. Because a tighter range means a cleaner workflow and a more profitable one. It’s a simple exercise, but it’s one of the most powerful things you can do to protect margins, simplify your factory, and sleep better at night. That’s interesting. DM me. Love to talk about it. Hope that helps. Go well.
