by admin | Jan 11, 2012 | Company News
Digital is growing! The addition of our fully automated digital printing and cutting press, the Primera CX/FX has really helped our digital department grow. Digital orders tend to be smaller than our average order, but nearly 10% of the orders placed in 2011 ran on this new equipment. We expect to see digital continue to grow – here is why:
- Low minimum order quantity – as few as 50-100 labels can be professionally printed
- No setup fees or die charges
- Any size – any shape
- Wide variety of materials available
Call is today to see if digital is right for your project.
by admin | Oct 8, 2011 | Company News, Environmental Green
Rose City Label is one of many Portland companies that send excess material, waste, and over run labels to this great local non-profit.
This group takes all types of excess material and allows artists of all ages and abilities to create amazing things — all while keeping tons of waste out of landfills each year. The group has a service to collect from local business, or business can deliver to their retail store, as shown in the photo above.
To learn more, or to support his great group, visit www.scrappdx.org
For the record, we never donate customer labels without the permission of the company – we donate setup stock, blank labels, and other print waste so that our customers’ valuable labels will never show up in a kindergarten art project.
by admin | Sep 29, 2011 | Company News
The McGladrey survey cited in the previous post had two other noteworthy conclusions:
Why Green? Businesses were asked why they are pursuing a ‘Green’ strategy of some type:
- 60% Said it was the socially responsible thing to do, and
- 57% Also said it would provide long term economic benefit for their company!
We agree – that’s why we continue to look for ways each day to reuse, reduce and recycle!
Why are you thriving? Top performing businesses in the survey had the following in common:
- Emphasize training and productivity tools
- Invest in automation and technology
- Culture of continuous improvement
- Track key metrics in real time with dashboards
These are all great ideas to keep in mind as we manage and grow our companies – thanks for trusting us with your label printing projects.
by admin | Sep 29, 2011 | Company News
Back in July our Rose City Label customers began seeing a 5-7% price increase on repeat orders. This was announced well in advance, and published in our quarterly email blast. We continue to offer options to keep costs down, like alternate materials, different design, or larger order quantity. Still, we felt it was no longer possible to hold the line on our prices when we have seen so many raw material cost increases. We just couldn’t do it anymore! This month, we found that we are in good company in making this change.
At a presentation by McGladrey – the Fifth largest accounting firm in America – nearly all manufacturers surveyed said they were passing on a price increase in the Summer of 2011. McGladrey’s quarterly MONITOR survey is available at www.mcgladrey.com and it is a fascinating look at privately held manufacturing companies.
Here are the typical price increases reported:
- Up to 5% increase – 61% of respondents
- 6-10% increase – 32% of respondents
- 10% or more increase – 7% of respondents
It is never easy to pass along an increase to good customers, but it was nice to learn that we are not alone. It is a reality of doing business that we all have to live with in order to remain viable, profitable suppliers for our clients.
Call us today to learn more about how to mitigate any price increase – we have solutions for all label needs!
by admin | Aug 23, 2011 | Company News, Technical
What are these funny squares?
QR codes are exciting new 2 dimensional bar codes that can be read from any smart phone that has a free reader app installed.
What can these codes do? They can:
- Launch a website or specific page on a site
- Send an email
- Send a text message
- Send a contact (vCard)
- Launch a YouTube Video
You (the label owner) decide what you want to do when someone scans your QR code, and we can create the code and print it on your label.
It’s easy! This is a great way to give your customers extended information about your product, while they are standing in front of it in the grocery store aisle. More nutrition info, serving suggestions, or testimonials from your best customers telling them why they MUST put your product into their shopping cart, right now!
Call today to learn more about QR codes and how we can add them to your labels.
by admin | Jun 27, 2011 | Company News, Customers/Examples, Technical
This great label shows not only the power of digital printing, but the POWER of the Rose City Label team to make things happen for our customers.
We got a panic call from a very good customer that had failed to order labels over a month ago, and now they were about to shut down their line and make their good customers wait for product. Luckily, that didn’t have to happen!
Besides amazing digital printing, this label had several other steps to make it a reality:
- Since it is ultimately delivered in single cut pieces (not on a roll) the stock had to be back-slit and sized for the press
- The job was a repeat print, so the we were able to fire up the digital press and print 10,000 labels very quickly
- but… then the label had to be laminated and cut to individual labels
- and… finally the label had to be inspected and trimmed to the exact size required by the customer…
While we very proud of the TECHNOLOGY used to make this label – we are even more proud of the PEOPLE that make it happen. Each of these steps was performed by a different person on a different machine. And the whole job was complete in about 4 hours!
The people that stand behind the technology are the difference – and the competitive advantage we have to offer your company.
If you would like this dedicated team making sure that your line never goes down, please call us today.
