Trade Printing

Trade printing is a wholesale business model within the printing industry in which a printer sells its printing services and materials, at wholesale rates, to print brokers, graphic designers, advertising agencies and other printing businesses rather than directly to the end customer who will actually use the finished product. Under the arrangement, these intermediaries buy the printed materials from the trade printer at a reduced price and then resell them to their own clients, while the trade printer itself stays invisible to the final customer, since its name and other identifying information never appear on or within the finished packaging. The model lets designers and agencies offer printing as part of their own services without operating printing equipment themselves, while letting the trade printer move volume through business-to-business relationships rather than through direct sales to individual consumers.