Julie Shaffer

Julie Shaffer

Julie Shaffer is Vice President, Digital Technologies at Printing Industries of America. She heads up the Digital Printing Council (DPC), as well as the Center for Digital Printing Excellence at Printing Industries headquarters in Sewickley, PA. In her position, Julie plays a lead role in developing programs and tools to help members grow their businesses with digital technologies.

Known for her graphic production expertise, Julie has a 20-plus year background in pre-media and print. She is often called upon for training, presentations and to provide on-site consulting throughout the industry on diverse range of topics, including PDF, color management, digital printing, social media and Web-to-print implementation. Julie is co-author of several books, including “The PDF Print Production Guide” (1st, 2nd and 3rd edition), the “Web-to-Print Primer” and the forthcoming “Field Guide to Social Media.”

Social Media Strategies: Don't Remain 'Anti-Social'

There are dozens of platforms available to help businesses create actual storefronts, complete with checkout options directly on Facebook (including 3dCart, Avenue Social, Moontoast, Payvment and Shopify, to name just a few.) When it comes to print commerce, or Web-to-print vendors, however, there's a complete dearth of social storefront options.

Seven Tips to Help 
In-plants Get Social

EVIDENCE OF how social media is taking the business world by storm is everywhere. Facebook "Like" buttons, Twitter links and invitations to follow RSS feeds seem to grace every Web site.

Finding Your Web-to-Print Solution

There are dozens of viable Web-to-print solutions, and trying to figure out which is the best fit for your shop can be a daunting task. The first step is to determine what you want to accomplish with a print e-commerce offering.

Web-to-print for In-plants

You probably don’t need to be convinced that it is important to offer your customers a way to do business with you using the Internet. After all, print e-commerce, commonly referred to as Web-to-print, has been on the scene for more than a decade. Although the dot-com bust of 2001 put mass adoption on hiatus until the past couple of years, today it is not only an accepted way to do business, but an expected one. Web-to-print solutions address, among other things, consumers’ desire for self-service options. Do people really want to serve themselves? Yes—and more so every year. According to the third annual