west-digital.fr

uContractor

A Fujifilm Revoria PC1120 Press on the Diamant Beach, Martinique, France

We encounter two typical situations among your fellow print shops where outsourcing can or should be implemented; maybe is it also your case?

• all the needed equipment or processes that would help independently supply customers are not available
• customers are outside mainland, or abroad (or in mainland, as you are yourself located overseas 🌞), situations that often increase delivery costs and times

Therefore, contrarily to usual practices and ideals, orders placed on a Web-to-Print eCommerce platform will not be produced locally, but by a subcontracting partner. The next step is to provide them with the right tools, enabling them to:

• be notified of new orders
• get the instructions and print file (if applicable)
• let you be informed of the processing progress

To achieve this, we developed "uContractor," an extension of XMPie's StoreFlow Web-to-Print platform. With uStore, you can create B2B stores or B2C e-commerce portals, featuring physical products, print products for clearance or on-demand printing, customizable products such as posters, flyers, brochures, business cards, labels, packaging, printed direct marketing materials, and even omnichannel communication campaigns.

With uContrator, you will be able to:

• automatically distinguish between orders to be produced in-house and those to be produced externally
• communicate with the right subcontractor to inform them of a new order to be produced at their facility
• welcome them through a simple, multilingual web interface that requires no specific application to be installed on their side; track each order, step by step, throughout its manufacturing process, giving you complete visibility
• if needed, have their production returned to you so you can reintegrate it into your logistics
• have the complete liberty to configure subcontracting processes yourself (or with our help, it's your choice)

Curious to know how we determine who is "the right subcontractor "? Currently, you have two options:

• either you assign "the right subcontractor" to each relevant product: automatically, all orders for that product will be assigned to this one; this is a typical case of a product whose manufacturing process is complex, so you entrust to a partner because you can't produce it yourself.
• or you might specify that orders submitted by a particular User Group will be sent to a specific subcontractor; this is typical of users located overseas, for whom delivery times or costs from your location would be prohibitive

But as you understand, uContrator is our development: it can tailored to fit your needs. 📌