Solopress used the Print Show to demonstrate Forge, its AI platform for resellers, helping them build fully costed jobs in seconds rather than minutes per product.
“We all used to take a one-size-fits-all approach, with the same products for resellers as for those using the website portal with a different level of discount for trade sellers,“ says chief executive Simon Cooper.
Now the approach is completely upended thanks to a recalculation engine that the company calls Anvil and Forge as the interface that resellers will use to present to their customers.
Instead of trying to find a product template then apply artwork to this, Forge takes a digital artwork file, parses it to run corrections, say from RGB to CMYK, adding crop and registration marks, spell checking and correction and upsizing a low resolution image into one suitable for printing.
The proof is delivered back to the reseller for passing on their client for approval, in page order if the job is a brochure for example.
A price to charge the client is supplied obeying rule about discounts and customer specific discounts. The technology will also add VAT if that is necessary without further checking.
The software will also check which device will print the job, whether litho, toner or inkjet.
“Forge is a configurator,” says Cooper. “It is not a shop front. It is much more flexible so can handle many more products. Normally the client has to select from the catalogue of products that we offer and then provide the artwork. We decided to reverse the process, taking the artwork first and then configuring the job in the best way.”
This also more creative discussions to take place with the customer and to enable more fluid pricing.
Where several items are needed for a project for example, the Forge delivers a single price.
APIs will connect the system to online services like Shopify. It will take in a spread sheet of hundreds of job specifications and deliver prices in seconds.
Says Cooper: “The whole point is to enable resellers to sell more.”
It has been developed and thoroughly tested in the UK before being rolled out to UK customers and across the Onlineprinters group. France, he says, will start to use it early next year.
