Special Report: The Three Ps - Smart Specifying, The Paper Principle

Paper prices have remained relatively stable and predictable since the tumultuous mid-1990s, but don’t let these quiet times fool you.

It’s no secret that the paper industry is going through major restructuring, with plenty of mergers and acquisitions. In the last few years alone, major players like Sappi, International Paper and Mead Paper have all played in M&A games.

In April, Ron Davis, the Printing Industries of America’s chief economist, told WhatTheyThink.com, “The wave of paper company mergers and acquisitions over the last few years is an attempt by paper companies to reduce overcapacity in the paper industry. Although there’s been some mill restructuring, there’s still plenty of worldwide capacity coupled with a generally soft worldwide demand.”

These mergers and acquisitions have yielded benefits and challenges for paper producers and clients alike. Many of these deals have promised to streamline mill operations and provide more efficient means for distribution.

But an industry ripe with buy-ups and newly forming partnerships often leaves print buyers and their suppliers anxious—uneasy about pricing shifts and customer service. All the more reason for catalogers to become more active in specifying substrates for their print titles, said Mike Evans, market development manager, DuPont White Pigment and Mineral Products, at the April 2002 Print Oasis conference.

Resources Abound

Fortunately, some paper suppliers can lend a hand to help educate end users. Some hold regional seminars, while others would be happy to provide you with more literature on paper fundamentals then perhaps you’d like on your desk. Still others are employing the Web to communicate with printers, distributors, merchants and catalogers.

International Paper is exemplary of how paper producers are reaching out to catalogers—enabling them to make smart specification and buying decisions. “We recently added a lot of features to our Web site,” explains Kim McGowan, advertising manager, Coated and SC Papers Division, International Paper.

The site (www.internationalpaper.com) also offers free of charge to registered users a slew of educational resources and electronic tools. “We have many valuable paper analysis tools that can walk the user through various paper scenarios. For example, what implications are there in moving from a No. 3 freesheet to a No.4 groundwood? Or how do you manage paper procurement during postal increases?”

There’s also a paper management tool that allows customers to place orders, track the status of their shipments, view manifest information or see past-order histories for up to 90 days.

DuPont’s Evans says it’s important that print buyers—not their printers or other agents—personally choose the paper on which their catalogs are printed. Why shouldn’t catalogers simply let their printers make the selection on their behalf?

“Printers are oriented toward run-ability,” Evans explains. While most—if not all—printers certainly will take the customer’s brand image into consideration, when faced with numerous substrate options, printers will tend to lean toward the paper that offers more stable runs. “Paper with more fiber but less coating can mean better runability, but printability may suffer.”

The print buyer, Evans suggests, can more appropriately make judgments about aesthetics, quality expectations, handshake (paper’s tactile perception) and opacity.

Specifying your paper, Evans cautions, doesn’t mean that print buyers should feel compelled to buy paper. That task may be better allocated to others better equipped to handle it. In many cases, it makes perfect sense for catalogers to have their printers purchase paper. It replaces liability from the customer’s to the printer’s shoulders if something should go awry, and printers these days often are part of large organizations with good buying leverage.

In other cases, Evans adds, “Print buyers with very large volumes may still benefit from buying directly from a merchant, broker or mill.”

Action Tips for the Specifier

Regardless of the method a cataloger chooses to purchase paper, in education lies the key to getting attractive pricing, reliable delivery and the best possible substrate for your catalog. Evans says paper prices can rise or fall steeply with just a small mismatch between supply and demand.

To weather these types of storms, catalogers must take the initiative to learn as much as they can about paper. Evans offers a few quick tips for smart specifying:

• Always compare papers on the basis of cost per area, rather than by basis weight.

• Substituting a lower-brightness non-fluorescent paper for high-brightness highly fluorescent paper can reduce cost while achieving the same or better print gamut.

• Print showthrough is a critical performance property—even a small change in opacity results in a large change in print showthrough.