What's Next for Staples Printing? Industry Trends That Are Already Reshaping the Shop Floor

For the past few years, I've been testing the limits of Staples Printing in ways that didn't exist when I started on press. Staples Printing isn't just a production line; it's a way of handling work that used to be split between offset, digital, and wide-format shops. The machines have changed, but the expectations around them have changed even faster.

I still get emails from people looking for help with a one-off project—like 24x36 poster printing near me—and those jobs are deceptively hard. The easy part is putting ink on paper. The hard part is doing it at a cost that works for one poster, while keeping the same quality as a run of ten thousand.

This article isn't a prediction from a consultant. It's a practical look at the trends I see from inside the production environment, filtered through the lens of someone who lives in prepress.

The Real Shift: Not Digital vs. Offset, But Hybrid Workflows

Everyone wants to talk about digital killing offset. That's not what I see. I see machines that are being asked to do both. A digital press for short runs and variable data, an offset press for the long steady repeats. The interesting work is in the middle. Operations like Staples services printing are investing in inline color measurement and automated makeready so the handoff between the two isn't a bottleneck.

One of the quieter trends is the growing need for flexible finishing. A job that starts as a digital proof might end up being a flexo run if the customer comes back with a rush order. That means the presswork is only half the battle. The finishing line has to be able to jump between one-piece and high-volume without a two-hour setup.

I've worked with shops that tried to go all-in on digital and found themselves losing the jobs that required 50,000 identical cartons. And I've watched offset-only shops turn away work because their minimums scared off a small brand. The shops that do well are the ones that build workflows around the job, not the machine. For Staples Printing, that lesson is baked into every quote we estimate.

Color Management Is Moving From Standards to Real-Time Adjustments

The biggest change in color management is that it's now happening during the run, not after. Inline spectrophotometers are becoming common on digital presses, not just offset. We're seeing ΔE less than 1.0 in controlled conditions, but the real world is messier. Even with standard poster sizes for printing, the expectation is now that the color matches a digital proof. That's harder than it sounds.

For print buyers, that means color consistency is no longer just a pressroom issue. It's a digital workflow issue. When a customer sends an email for Staples Printing, the file attached matters more than the message. The proof they see on screen is rarely the same as what comes off the press. That's not a failure; it's a limitation of RGB displays. Good prepress teams account for it by building profiles for each machine and substrate. Bad ones just cross their fingers.

One area where color is trickier than many people think is wide-format poster jobs. I'm not talking about art-house stuff. I'm talking about the commercial work that comes in through a request for 24x36 poster printing near me. Those short-run posters are rarely proofed on the actual paper. At Staples Printing, we run those jobs on a wide-format inkjet that's calibrated for the stock, but we still can't promise a perfect match to an offset sheet. The inkjet often has a wider gamut than the offset press that will handle the long run. Getting two technologies to match is not always possible. Sometimes we have to tell the customer that the poster will be a bit more saturated than the brochure—and that's the honest answer.

Sustainability Is About Cost, Not Just Carbon

Sustainability is a word that gets thrown around too loosely. In my experience, the shops making real progress are the ones that treat it as a cost-control program, not a marketing badge. At Staples Printing, that means reducing waste ink, cutting makeready spoilage, and using recycled substrates where they don't create more downtime. The environmental benefit is real. But if the numbers don't work, the program doesn't last.

The shift to water-based inks and LED-UV is gaining ground, but there are trade-offs. Water-based inks are easier on the environment, but they dry slower and can be a headache on non-porous films. LED-UV dries fast and uses less energy, but it's not a drop-in replacement for every press. I've seen shops adopt new inks and then spend months fighting adhesion issues. This is not a criticism. It's just a reminder that any new material has a learning curve.

There's also a strange dynamic with paper sourcing. Customers ask for FSC-certified stock, but then reject the job because the shade is slightly off from their previous order. Nature has its own color management. You can't batch-match trees the way you batch-match ink. That's an industry-wide issue, not something one print shop can solve. Someone will ask, 'which printing technique was popularized in poster art in the mid-19th century?' The answer is lithography—but the bigger point is that every dominant technique in printing history came in when it solved both a cost and a quality problem. The current push for sustainability is no different.

What the Next Five Years Looks Like for Staples Printing

If I had to make one prediction, it's that the line between print shop and online service will keep blurring. Ordering a batch of cartons already feels like ordering a ride. You upload a file, get a quote in minutes, and track the job while it runs. For Staples Printing, that means the sales office has to become part of the production flow. The person answering the email for Staples Printing has to know as much about color spaces as the press operator.

The second prediction is about personalization. Variable data printing has been around for decades, but it's still underused. In the next few years, I expect more brands to realize that a simple versioned label—one with the customer's name, or a store-specific code—doesn't require a complicated digital press. It just requires a smart workflow. Most shops already have the hardware. They don't have the software discipline.

The third thing is less technical and more cultural. The post-COVID workforce is smaller and less experienced. I'm seeing a lot of shops where the experienced press operator is close to retirement, and the newcomer came from IT, not printing. That's not bad. But it means equipment needs to be easier to run, or the workflow has to catch the errors before they hit paper. I don't think AI is going to replace press operators. It's going to become their backup.

So where does that leave a service like Staples Printing? Honestly, the basics matter more than the tech. Answer the phone. Show up on time. Tell the customer when the proof will be ready. Those things haven't changed. The trends that matter are the ones that let you keep doing those basics at a price someone will pay. Everything else is just noise.