By Rich Boland, Client Services, Precision Group – Printing Services Melbourne
If you run a print business in Melbourne or Victoria, you already know the problem. A client comes to you with a job that’s either outside your equipment capability, beyond your current capacity, or in a quantity range that doesn’t stack up on your machines. You have three options: turn the work away, outsource it to a print broker who adds margin, or find a trade printing partner you can trust. This article is for fellow printers. We’re not going to pretend otherwise. Precision Group offers trade printing in Melbourne because we have capacity, capability, and the kind of production infrastructure that’s genuinely useful to other print businesses. And because confidential, professional trade relationships are something we take seriously.
What We Can Do That You Might Not
Our Somerton facility is an established Melbourne commercial printing infrastructure:
- Four Heidelberg offset presses for high-volume, colour-critical work
- 14 digital printing machines covering short-run colour, mono overprint, and variable data production
- Four advanced inkjet units for large format, personalised applications, and packaging substrates
- Full in-house finishing: guillotining, perfect binding, saddle stitching, wire-o binding, die cutting, foiling, and laminating
- In-house data management and prepress capability
- Fulfilment and mailing integration
If your client needs a high-volume custom offset printing run, a large-format job outside your equipment range, variable data production you can’t handle in-house, or a finishing spec that requires dies you don’t hold. We can produce it.
How Precision Group Works with Melbourne Trade Print Partners
The trade relationship works on the following principles:
- Your client remains your client. We do not market to your customers, contact them directly, or seek to establish a relationship with them.
- Confidentiality is default, not negotiated. Trade jobs are handled under the assumption that the end client’s identity is commercial-in-confidence.
- You set the margin. We quote you a trade rate. What you charge your client is your business.
- You are the account manager. Job instructions come through you. We don’t go around you.
- Quality standards apply exactly as they do to our direct clients. Trade work is not second-tier production.
What You’ll Need to Provide
To produce your Melbourne trade printing job properly, we’ll need:
- Print-ready files meeting our file specification requirements (prepress checklist available on request)
- A clear job specification: quantity, stock, finish, trim size, fold/binding method, colour mode
- For variable data jobs: a clean, formatted data file and a brief describing the personalisation logic
- Delivery address and any special packing or distribution requirements
- Your required delivery date so we can confirm whether standard or expedited production is needed
The Sustainability Credential Your Melbourne Clients Are Starting to Ask For
If your clients are asking about environmental credentials and increasingly they are, subcontracting to Precision Group gives you a substantive answer. As Victoria’s only Level 3 Sustainable Green Print-certified commercial printer, and one of five nationally, work produced here is backed by the most rigorous environmental accreditation in Australian print.
Trade Print Volumes and Lead Times
We are set up for commercial production volumes. Standard offset lead times are 5–8 business days from artwork approval. Digital is typically 3–5. We’ll always give you a realistic timeline at quote stage. We’re not the right partner for single-copy digital jobs or same-day turnaround on complex finishing. We are the right partner for:
- Custom offset printing Melbourne runs from around 1,000 upward
- Digital jobs from 50 to many thousands
- Large format jobs of any quantity on commercial substrates
- Variable data campaigns from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of pieces
We’ve been in this industry long enough to know that a good trade relationship is built on two things: doing what we say we’ll do and not behaving like a competitor in your client relationship.
Want to establish a Melbourne trade print account with Precision Group?
Contact our Group CEO, Cory Hall at cory@thepg.com.au or on 0434 110 954 to discuss your requirements. thepg.com.au/services/print/
Precision Group’s Environmental Management System is ISO 14001 accredited. We are the only Level 3 Sustainable Green Printer in Victoria and one of five certified in Australia by the Visual Media Association. Our certification covers ink, substrate, energy, and waste management across all production types.
