Navigating the Current Paper Shortage

24 May Navigating the Current Paper Shortage

Members of the World Print & Communication Forum (WPCF), a federation of printing associations from all over the world, have warned that the current paper shortages will have severe repercussions in the supply of print products for all economic markets and are endangering the sector’s rebound after the coronavirus pandemic. We are now facing surging prices and uncertainty about the supply of paper and board.

Here is a quick recap of issues that are impact the current paper market challenges according to Keypoint Intelligence:

• North American pulp prices rose 40% over the previous year, and paper price increases in 2021 ranged from 7.5% to 20%.
• Energy prices are rising by unprecedented values, partly caused by high global energy demand and climate change factors.
• Across the world, over the past few years, mills have been closing. In fact, there are at least 50 fewer paper mills operating now than there were at the start of 2019. If we increase demand quickly and suddenly, supply cannot keep up with demand
• Labor shortages exist in all aspects of manufacturing making it impossible to run plants at full capacity.

Obviously, the pandemic and the shutdown of business universally contributed to a deficit of product. The price of oil year on year made transportation costs skyrocket from $2.41 per gallon to the average at the time of this blog of $4.09 per gallon. Compound this with the 195% increase in shipping costs over the past year and the dearth of truck drivers and you have a perfect recipe for huge price fluctuations and unpredictable transportation costs.

We know that many transactional documents, such as healthcare, cannot be digitized, so a complete transition to digital to solve this paper shortage is not feasible. With all these factors impacting the cost and availability of paper, DATAMATX has initiated options to combat this issue, from reducing waste to operating as a white paper factory to e-delivery options. Here are other ways together we can mitigate this issue:

• Talk to us about using DATAMATX standard stock, #10 double window envelopes or #9 return envelopes, instead of custom envelopes (This is the most secure, cost effective, and low risk option for your company)
• Talk to us about eliminating #9 return envelopes all together, or selectively inserting #9 return envelopes
• Talk to us about redesigning your bills, notices and statements for more value and possibly eliminating costly detail pages, drive your customer to a portal for more information or payments
• Talk to us about our Bounce2Print solution, a streamlined process to reroute bounced emails to ensure a successful delivery of the document

This is a time of challenge to be sure, but it is also a good opportunity to look at new ways to maximize the production of your documents by taking advantage of the tools DATAMATX has in place to keep our customers connected with their customers and keep your business moving forward.