Until recently the overseas market for fast, short-run print jobs was considered impossible for Hong Kong printers to crack, owing to high shipping costs and other logistical problems. That appears to be changing with the arrival of Icicle, a local company filling a vacuum between buyers and low-cost printing services.
'We have special knowledge on how to allocate jobs, how to generate savings,' says Icicle's business development manager Bonnie Chan.
She says the firm can be described as a print-management company that matches orders to those best suited to deliver the job. While it may not sound like rocket science, matching the flow of jobs to the printers with the spare capacity at the right price - all with a 36-hour turnaround time - is harder than it appears.
Before Icicle was launched by Ms Chan's father Alex six years ago, no one had ever thought of the idea. An industry veteran with more than 30 years' experience, Mr Chan undertook the venture on a gut feeling that a mediator between the buyer and printer could benefit both parties.
By studying the efficiency issue, he saw that print jobs could be allocated to print houses with spare capacity to keep them running through the night.
Printers like the idea because it enables them to squeeze extra margins against equipment, rent and other fixed costs; buyers like it because prices are lower.