Climbing the Walls Atlanta GA

Wide-format imaging professionals have been getting the hang of the wall coverings market for several years. But growing competition in the signage market has resulted in more shops than ever looking to hang out in this burgeoning segment.

As one provider notes, providing wall coverings isn't rocket science.

It's not like certain types of printing where there's a lot of extra things to be figured out," said Damon Henrichs of Houston's ABI Digital Solutions. "It's nowhere near as high maintenance. If you figure out how to print it and how to finish it, and you have a competent installer, then it can be very profitable."

But to succeed, shops must overcome other hurdles, such as identifying markets that are sustainable rather than one-shots, and convincing clients of the vast potential in wall coverings that are both decorative and brand enhancing.

Growth of Digital Wall Coverings

According to Patti Williams, consulting partner at Hanover, MA-based IT Strategies, it's no surprise the wall coverings marketplace is growing. "When you think about it, it's not a big stretch to go from a big sign to a mural or wallpaper," she said. "It's the same substrates, for the most part. It's not a big deal for print shops with wide-format printing equipment to make murals and wallpaper."

In its most recent examination of the market, IT Strategies pegged this segment in the US at more than $100 million a year. In 2006, indoor wide-format graphics represented a $20.2 billion market worldwide. Assuming decorative graphics accounts for three to five percent of that total, "it's going to be a good number, but still a relatively small piece of the market," Williams observed. "That's a lot of opportunity."

The big issue facing wide-format shops is what kind of customers are likely to purchase wall covering. As the digital wall coverings market has grown, much demand has existed for custom jobs where each wall covering is designed specifically for that client. Today, some shops have begun offering digital wall coverings based on rotogravure designs. Wallpaper has traditionally been printed on gravure printers.

"You could take a detail from a gravure designed product, and make complementary digital products," Williams said. "One of the reasons for doing this is to target the traditional customer of wall coverings, the interior designer and architect…It's trying to bring the architects and designers more into the realm of digital printing."

These professionals will have to embrace digital, she added. Interior decorators, for instance, might be given responsibility for wall coverings throughout a chain of donut shops. But a digital printer could create wall coverings featuring donuts and coffee, representing what Williams terms "deco advertising." In this case, the chain's marketing department, not the designer, would be in charge of those walls.

"Interior designers could lose some of their walls if they didn't begin offering digital products," Williams reported. "Digitally-printed wall coverings will always cost more, because digital costs more. But you get a value. The donut shop has locations throughout the region, and with digital it would be easy to scale up or shrink designs to match different-sized shops. You can't do that with traditional gravure printed wallpaper.

"So interior designers who don't embrace digital are losing out on the ability to offer customers new and innovative design solutions—which is what they're all about."

Those shops owners who believe every job has to be custom haven't explored the opportunity to expand offerings. For instance, cruise lines that experience considerable repeat business could use digitally printed wall coverings to freshen their interiors annually, or for different itineraries, she says. Rich opportunity also exists in creating entire suites of products that could include not just wall coverings, but floor coverings, fabric window treatments, tablecloths, and seat covers.

"There are all kinds of products that can be created in one shop," Williams said."

A Tough Sell?

Among the shops expanding their wall coverings sales is ABI Digital Solutions, where Henrichs serves as sales manager. The company began printing wall coverings about two years ago, and while the segment comprises just two percent of sales, it's a growing part of the business, Henrichs said.

To date, the company has produced wall coverings for restaurants, church youth centers, and the offices of dentists and pediatricians. Wall coverings are generally printed on a Vutek PressVu machine.

ABI's clients haven't yet begun specifically asking for wall coverings. "It reminds me a little bit of the removable truck side market, in that it sounds like a great idea, but getting the market to move to it takes a little time. You're competing against people doing airbrushing or hand-painted walls," Henrichs says. There's also the hurdle of clients buying into the concept, he says, "of having any kind of custom wall in the first place, which for some is an imaginative leap. I don't think it's quite as difficult a transition as to get people to do removable vinyl sides framed in on trucks. But it does remind me of that, in that people aren't banging down my doors asking for it."

To sell customers on the idea of digital wall coverings, ABI has undertaken some trade show marketing and cold calling, and is in the process of having the company listed in an industry trade library where it can advertise wall coverings.

Prospects include architectural designers and interior designers, but not so many retailers, Henrichs said. "The difficult thing in targeting retailers is finding the sweet spot," he noted. "You don't want to go to mom-and-pop pizza shops with one store, where you can reach the decision maker, but you do one and you're done. You want to reach that chain that has 20 stores and is growing. You start with one and do more."

The other challenge ABI has confronted in trying to make wall coverings a bigger part of its business is dealing with installation hurdles inherent in serving clients outside its region. "You always strive to provide a turnkey solution," Henrichs said. "But when you're flying to another city, then you're doing the installation yourself, or dealing with a subcontractor with whom you may or may not have had dealings in the past."

In the end, Henrichs believed that while digital wall coverings are an expanding segment, it will never be as lucrative as others wide-format imaging shops serve.

"It's not like the trade show industry, where every show needs graphics," he remarked. "In this industry, you can do a large project that's very profitable, but when it's done the building's built, and they're not going to come back to you. There's nowhere near the amount of repeat business as there is in some of the other things we do."

Expanding Capabilities

Another company with a stake in the digital wall covering niche is Hirshfield's, a more than century-old family-owned Minneapolis-based firm. The company's commercial wall coverings division services architects, designers and property owners with wall coverings, textiles and paints.

Digitally printed wall coverings, which the company sells for between $7 and $12 a square foot, are a small but growing percentage of its business.

"It's been a nice addition to our product mix, specifically to architects or designers working with larger firms," said Gregg Johnson, manager of the contract wall coverings division. "With the advent of wall covering as a medium, we can keep continuity from what they have in their plain textured wall coverings, to what they now want, which is a wall covering that acts as a branding element."

Johnson believes growth will come from retailers and other operational-based companies that demand continuity in graphics from one location to the next. And that's the beauty of digital, he added. "It's flexibility and minimal runs. If you want to do a custom job with an analog [machine], you have to meet the manufacturers' minimums. But with digital, you can do just one. We can do anything for a fee."

Meantime, Fairlawn, OH-based Omnova Solutions is serving health clubs, rental car locations, retail, and restaurant chains with digitally-printed wall coverings, reports general manager of contract interiors Roger Oats. "We're going straight to the corporate clients," he said. "We're working with a major 20-year-old restaurant chain that is now in the phase of opening a new restaurant concept. It has some 800 stores, and will incorporate digitally-printed graphics that will allow them to retrofit existing locations to match the new restaurant prototype they're developing."

Omnova is able to reinforce brand positioning and imagery associated with a brand, Oates said. For instance, the company prints all the graphics for a major fitness chain's locations. The graphics can be in the weight training area, for instance, with images of people running or working with weights, to support the brand positioning.

Oates and colleagues have run up against obstacles when approaching Omnova Solutions' traditional customer base of architects and designers to offer the printing of any image desired on a wall covering. "You get a blank stare," Oates said. "They're looking for a starting point for any project. It's easier for us to go to a retail chain—a fitness facility, rental car facility—where it's repetition through multiple locations, and their marketing departments view that wall space as selling space."

Omnova sees potential in digital wall coverings. Noting sales have climbed from $2 million in 2006 to $3 million this year and are expected to reach $4 to $5 million in 2008, Oates says, "We see this as a great growth platform for us."

Jeff Steele is a freelance writer who specializes in the field of business management, marketing, and protocol, especially as they apply to wide-format printing firms. Contact him at scribsteel@americom.net.