How print chief Hendre Vos is reaching out to new partners and to new markets.
“Personalising with TismoVision is the new market which every self-respecting enterprise is searching for.” So says the homepage of Tismo Products, a Netherlands-based print provider who’s creator, Hendre Vos, believes he has hit upon a massive opportunity with breakaway TismoVision – a “whole marketing concept for graphics printed thermoformed products.”
Having bought an Acuity printer that runs FujiFilm Uvijet KV ink stretchable inks in 2014, his imperative is to get print possibilities for thermoformed products out into the big wide world, because he “spent 300,000 Euro and had no customers.” He explains: “I saw the technology and believed thermoforming people would flock to us for graphics. It wasn’t the case. They use plain colours mostly and didn’t see a requirement for graphics on a printed sheet that they could then thermoform into products. But I could, so I decided to create my own markets.”
So two years ago Vos set up Super Click Covers, an online ordering site for personalised dashboard covers for the Mini and Fiat 500 cars. The concept is simple – people upload the images they want on their car dashboard to the site via the Web-to-print system he developed, Tismo handles the print, and a partner does the actual thermoforming to create the product which is then shipped to the customer. “From that I saw huge potential for more products that could be personalised and so I formed TismoVision” says Vos.
This is not just a W2P site – it’s a business model. As Vos explains, “PSPs normally have to wait for orders to come in. The idea of TismoVision is that it’s used to actually create new products and find new manufacturing partners.”
TismoVision effectively acts as a storefront that brings together marketer, printer, thermoformer to get new personalised printed products out into the market. The idea is that Tismo handles the print and forms relationships with various thermoformers to produce various product lines.
He highlights a project producing bespoke briefcases, following contact with a thermoforming case manufacturer that wanted 20 briefcases in a specific colour and with a logo. “We had a conversation and I said I could do better than that. ‘You order the transparent sheets and I’ll set up a platform to produce totally personalised suitcases and we’ll work together’. “
The result is a website whereby a customer not only uploads their personlised image online, but also pays up front for the finished case. “When the order comes in it is split – we do the print on flat sheets and our partner then manufactures that as a case. The finished product then goes straight out of the door – no stockholding and all paid up before the order is processed.”
Vos says it has cost him about 500,000 (on the Acuity, W2P development etc) to turn the concept into a workable reality, but he says “the margins are fantastic”.
He adds: “Even big stores are interested. They can have an ordering station instore, with examples of products beside it. I think we’ll see that happening.
“And we’ll create different website for different products, all of which we at Tismo will be able to access via a central site.
“I’m no longer selling production capacity, I’m selling emotion. And I’d rather do two hours’ emotion on the printer than eight hours production! ,” he grins. “When it comes to personalisation everybody becomes greedy. If you have the vision to see that, put in the work to create the concepts and sell them to the various partners, and undertake a proper marketing job you can make astonishingly good money,” enthuses Vos.