Apoidea Handels GmbH in Bautzen shows that specialization in online print can work: Their online store www.honigetiketten.de, which is geared towards beekeepers, has been on the market for more than a year and is developing so well that a second online store, www.glasetiketten.de, has just been added to the portfolio. In both cases, the lead print store from Be.Beyond was used for the implementation, most recently also including the new 3D preview of the pitch print editor. The production partner for the labels is the Digitaldruckerei Schleppers.
The idea for the online store with a focus on labels for honey jars was born out of a personal passion: Robert Czyzowski, Managing Director of the Digitaldruckerei Schleppers in Bautzen, discovered beekeeping for himself in 2017; in response to private and professional challenges and as a counter-reaction to society’s performance principle of “higher, faster, further,” as he explains in an interview with Lead-Print.
While the Digitaldruckerei Schleppers is Czyzowski’s parent company, employing 16 people, maintaining the printing presses and producing the labels for the stores, “Apoidea Handels GmbH operates the online stores as a sales company and sells printed materials as well as various beekeeping tools, accessories and honey jars,” he says.
Labels for a particular niche
Printing is carried out according to customer requirements: From the sheet, from the roll, on classic grass paper or transparent adhesive material, with or without gold finishing for a high-quality appearance. What’s more, “Labels with a guarantee seal are our specialty,” Robert Czyzowski tells beyond-print.de, “because we are very flexible with regard to the die-cutting form thanks to our digital die-cutters. Customers appreciate this flexibility.”
As far as production is concerned, the Digitaldruckerei Schleppers was already well equipped for label production with an Igen4 XXL from Xerox and a Zünd cutter before the online store was launched. With the Go-Online and the positive response from the (beekeeping) market, the Bautzen-based company also brought another cutter in-house for automated label cutting. “And we recently started using a new Konica Minolta AccurioLabel 230 incl. converter for printing and processing roll labels,” he says.
The design templates for the labels, which can later be customized through customer input, were developed by the print shop’s staff. “As a full-service print shop, we have a prepress department with five graphic artists and media designers,” explains Robert Czyzowski. After more than a year, the number of variations now adds up to more than 2,000. Business with the labels – and now also signs and other products for beekeepers’ needs – has developed so satisfactorily that Apoidea has just set up a second online print store.
With glasetiketten.de, the target group is expanded beyond beekeeping and labels and stickers are offered for all types of jars. As with the honey labels, the open-shop solution Lead-Print Druckshop from Be.Beyond was used to implement the store. However, it came with a small add-on, the web-to-print editor with 3D preview from Pitchprint.
Lead-Print integrates Pitchprint: New editor with 3D preview
Last summer, the Willich-based software house Be.Beyond announced that it had integrated Pitchprint into its open store solution Druckshop. With the new editor, classic printed matter can be designed directly and intuitively within the store environment. This should enable store operators to expand their B2C business in particular.
The highlight of the editor is the 3D preview, which allows customers to examine and check their individually designed product in an all-round view. As Be.Beyond explains, this reduces the error rate, while at the same time increasing the customer’s willingness to buy. At the end of the process, the store operator receives a print-ready PDF that can be sent directly to production after the order has been placed.
The fact that labels for jars and bottles are particularly suitable for 3D visualization in the Pitchprint Editor is as understandable as it is obvious. This is why Robert Czyzowski also decided to use the additional tool for his second online store: “Especially in the printing industry, which is plagued by overcapacity, we can’t afford to stand still,” he says. “Driven by input from our customers, we are constantly developing. […] If you listen to your customers and take their problems seriously, new business ideas arise all by themselves.”
