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How to start a wallpaper printing business? Go digital!

Commercial printing Wallpaper

23/01/2018

by Dimitri Van Gaever

The wallpaper industry has been making a phenomenal comeback in the last few years thanks to today’s advanced digital printing technology. Meanwhile, digital printing solutions are becoming more and more accessible to startups with a limited budget.

Meeting the Millennial’s wallpaper needs

Understanding the Millennial consumer’s wallpaper needs is, evidently, crucial if you want your startup business to succeed. While tastes will always differ, today’s best-selling wallpaper designs do have the three following aspects in common:
 

1. Fantastic image quality

There is no stopping the realistic wallpaper trend and all the amazing tromp-l’oeil designs and photo murals it brings along. Think wallpaper that looks exactly like wood paneling, exposed brick, concrete, mosaic, … and even custom printed photo wallpaper designs, all with fantastic HD resolution.
 

2. EN 15102-compliant 

Wallpaper in public areas has to meet flammability standards, which implies that it has to be printed with EN 15102-compliant toner. Consumers in general also have a strong preference for wallpaper that doesn’t smell of chemicals and which is, in other words, printed without solvents.
 

3. No more steaming and scraping

The thing consumers love the most about wallpaper these days? It allows them to regularly give their home or office a whole new look at a low cost. Which means you better make sure your wallpaper is easy to apply and dry strippable, or, in other words, printed on a non-woven substrate.

Digital wallpaper printing is trending

In order to successfully tap into the realistic wallpaper trend, the wallpaper industry increasingly resorts to digital printing technology for several reasons:
 

1. Seamless and spotless prints 

Digital wallpaper printing not only guarantees the lanes will be seamlessly aligned on the wall but also eliminates the risk of unevenly spread ink. A Xeikon wallpaper printing solution, for instance, comes with a prepress workflow that includes automated tiling, prints everything in a single pass and, not unimportantly, produces prints that match conventional printing technologies, like offset.
 

2. Sustainable wallpaper printing

Printing wallpaper digitally also means being able to use dry toner, which is eco-friendly not just because it is free from solvents and emits no VOCs, but also because it is manufactured in a factory that runs on 100% green energy.
 

3. Perfectly compatible with non-woven

Digital wallpaper printing can only be done on non-woven paper, so you can rest assured your customers will be buying a product they can easily apply and remove. 
 

Printing custom wallpaper on demand

Sitting on dead stock is any wallpaper printing startup’s worst nightmare. Unless they print digitally, that is. Contrary to analogue wallpaper printing solutions, digital is most cost-effective for short runs and print-on-demand business models, and even allows for zero inventory. Wallpaper printing startups who print digitally can even rapidly expand abroad without having to launch foreign offices by adopting a decentralized printing model: a design gets ordered, the file is sent to a printing partner located where the demand occurs, the wallpaper gets printed immediately and is then sent straight on to the customer’s doorstep.

Start your printing business with Xeikon

Is your startup still looking for a digital wallpaper press? Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information regarding our scalable solutions