Digital Print Group

What Digital Print Group is

Digital Print Group is a German digital printing company that prints on demand for businesses and publishers. Its home page describes it as "seit über 30 Jahren" (for more than 30 years) the reliable partner for industry, trade and publishers, covering digital printing and solutions from concept and programming through to fulfillment. It states that all processes run in its own digital print shop on modern digital presses, and it prints with toner, inkjet and UV systems as well as offset.

The print-on-demand page is aimed at industrial and trading companies more than at individual creators. Its pitch is that a business can stop holding stock of printed material, because Digital Print Group produces each product only when it is ordered, always in the current or personalized version, and ships it straight away. The page names the range as running "vom Buch bis zu White-Label-Produkten", from books to white-label products.

What it prints

Books and bound documents are a core line. The company says it produces softcover and hardcover books, stapled products and spiral-bound products under one roof, and its finishing options include matte or gloss varnish, softcover binding, thread sewing (Fadenheftung) and cellophane lamination. Binding work (Bindearbeiten) appears as its own technology in the site's menu, alongside inkjet, toner and UV production.

Beyond books, the home page lists a wide product range: postcards, brochures, flyers, placards, posters and signs; stickers, calendars and mailings; and roll or sheet goods. Formats run from DIN A4 up to large wall posters. Large-format work covers posters, canvases and rigid materials, and the company says it prints on paper, tarpaulin, adhesive film, lightweight and rigid foam boards and acrylic glass. For color it describes standard CMYK printing plus special colors such as metallic inks and white.

The Solutions menu also lists a set of consumer design tools under their own domains:

• fotokalender.com, a calendar designer;
• meine-kartenmanufaktur.de, a card designer;
• kizpix.de, a mobile photo service;
• abeasy.de, a designer for German school-leaving yearbooks (Abizeitungen).

How print on demand works here

The model is simple in principle. A client places an order, and Digital Print Group prints exactly what is needed, whether one copy or thousands. Under the heading "Ab Auflage 1" (from a run of 1) the page puts it as: "Egal ob eine Auflage von einem Stück, drei oder 2.000", whether a run of one, three or 2,000, the result is a quality product.

Three services turn printing into fulfillment:

• End-customer shipping. The company says it can ship any product directly to the client's chosen end customer, saving the client extra cost and handling, and that it has shipping logistics for every delivery requirement.
• No storage or disposal costs. It says it has enough storage capacity and a mature logistics operation, including disposal, and takes this over for its clients "ohne dass weitere Kosten anfallen", without further costs.
• Variable content. Once a job is set up, the client can adapt it at any time by topic, region or audience. The client names the variables (run size, changes to content, format or color, through to personalization) and the company prints to demand.

The site's menu adds shipping, logistics and warehousing, fulfillment shipping, data management and finishing as separate services, together with marketing materials and seminar materials on demand, programmatic print for individual customer communication, and web-to-print. The print-on-demand page says print-on-demand services can be integrated into existing online shops to simplify production and fulfillment, and that orders are processed quickly and shipped worldwide.

A worked example from the page

The clearest picture of what the company does comes from the example it gives. One client makes nine different capital goods, each with 20 different documents in 24 languages, which adds up to 4,320 technical documents. They are never needed all at once; it depends on which machine is going where. Rather than steer that by hand, Digital Print Group coupled its print-on-demand system to the client's SAP. It now receives only an SAP control file saying what should be printed, in what form and in which language, and what should be shipped. In that case it assembles the documents into binders with tab dividers and delivers them to the client's central warehouse, and the page adds that it can drive other processes from a client's data in the same way.

For a publisher or a brand with many titles, versions or languages, that is the relevant capability: the printer takes data from the client's system and turns it into finished, packed goods without anyone reordering by hand.

Digital versus offset, in the company's words

The site's FAQ is candid about the trade-off. It says digital printing suits small quantities because there are no high setup costs and no printing plates, which allows fast throughput and individual adjustments for personalized jobs. It also says digital printing is more expensive per printed page than offset and slower, and that some materials and special colors are not always easy to use digitally. Offset, it says, is good for large quantities because the cost per print falls as the run grows. The company says it carries out print jobs with both methods.

Environmental claims

The print-on-demand page makes its environmental case in its own voice: print-on-demand avoids overproduction, so only as many items are printed as are actually needed. It also states: "Wir achten darauf, umweltfreundlich zu produzieren, indem wir CO₂-frei drucken und ein Zertifikat für klimaneutrales Drucken haben", that it prints CO2-free and holds a certificate for climate-neutral printing. The home page adds that environmentally friendly presses and inks support sustainable production. The certificate itself is not named.

Ordering and contact

The home page says orders can be placed through the website, and the print-on-demand page invites clients to get in touch through the contact form, by email or by phone, on 0911-4771800. The site is in German.

Prices are not published; business jobs are quoted on request.

Who it suits

Digital Print Group suits a German-speaking business, publisher or brand that needs printed goods in changing versions and small quantities: books, manuals, technical documentation, marketing material, posters or personalized products, printed and shipped to the end customer without stock. The SAP example makes it a natural fit for companies with complex document sets, and binding, large-format printing and packing all come from the same supplier.

It is less suited to an individual seller looking for a self-service POD app with a product catalog, mockups and a marketplace connection. The pages describe a production partner that sets up each client's workflow, not a sign-up platform, and pricing starts with a conversation.