When the target audience of your web-to-print application consists of consumers or a wide range of not necessarily known business partners, you don't have much options. Your web-to-print tools will need to show accurate prices online. This can be done in the application itself, or by linking to an MIS software. But if your web-to-print application is set up for a large account, there are many ways in which to incorporate pricing information.
Online storefront
The first available option is an online storefront, available to the general public without a login. This type of web-to-print application may come in two modes (one generally available, and a second only with login), but in that case the login usually just provides some additional pricing information such as specific price arrangements. Either way, the pricing for this type of application is typically completely accurate (and usually also includes online payment). The options available for the other types of web-to-print with regards to accurate payments also apply here.
Accurate pricing in the web-to-print application
And the first of those options is to include the pricing information inside the web-to-print software itself. Depending on how far you want to go, this can include volume based pricing, grouping of orders in baskets, delivery costs, and so on. The choice pretty much is yours. If there is a logic to it, it can be implemented into the web-to-print solution. But the risk you're running is that you're recreating an MIS system from scratch. Not something we're very keen to do, for obvious reasons.
Accurate pricing from an external MIS
Therefore, it might be much more interesting to link the web-to-print solution to an existing MIS. The management of products and their prices can be done there, just as you're used to. Delivery information, invoicing arrangements, and so on, can all be extracted by the web-to-print application, and used in the workflow. This way, the business logic stays in one place, but you can still incorporate accurate information into your web-to-print solution.
Potential pittfalls for accurate pricing
But this might present you with difficulties. Grouped orders, for example, only can be priced after all participants to a web-to-print campaign have placed their order. So what will you visualize online in the web-to-print tool? Delivery costs will vary according to the amount of other products that can be shipped simultaneously. This means grouping orders in baskets, which might be a hurdle for "simple" users in the interface of the web-to-print solution. Volume based pricing is simple in most cases, untill you start in-depth negotiations with your customer. Their views might not always be captured easily into any type of logic for a software.
Awareness-pricing
So in some cases, our customers decide not to show accurate prices online at all. This is especially done when the using who is placing the order in the web-to-print workflow is not actually billed for the materials. Often, his department or even just the central marketing department will be responsible for the costs of the output of the web-to-print applications. In this case, a very simple price can be shown online. Rather than provide the end user with an accurate price, it will show him that his actions in the web-to-print tool will have some consequences for the company. So rather than ordering 1000 business cards, he might decide that 500 could be enough. Or vice versa: if the difference between the two isn't all that big, he might decide to go for a bigger order, rather than have to order it again in a couple of months.
Double accounting
These applications or web-to-print websites with accurate pricing do however regularly contain a double pricing mechanism. On one side, the web-to-print application will show the prices that were visualized to the end user. But on the other side (depending on who logged in), they might show the prices that were actually billed to the customer. The difference between the two is the margin for the central marketing department. Their way to recuperate part of the overhead of the web-to-print software and other services they provide.
Marketing budgets
And in some cases, the visualization doesn't include actual costs at all. Marketing budgets are often included in a web-to-print application to stimulate end users to use the online marketing tools. A number of points (or Euros) are granted to the users, with which he can order materials from the web-to-print tools. But in most cases, this is not meant to limit the expenses. Rather, it is a way for the central marketing department to stimulate the end users. Giving a budget often encourages people to spend it. And in this case, this means: more local marketing presence!