Traction Print

Technical consulting for print businesses: Traction Print

Traction Print is an independent consultancy based in Sydney, Australia, that works with print businesses on the implementation, integration and optimisation of their management systems. The firm presents itself as an implementation partner rather than a licence vendor, with the stated aim of connecting software to the production floor and eliminating manual data entry.

Its activity is organised into four areas: sales automation and CRM, MIS and production systems, web-to-print portals, and cloud infrastructure. The company states that most of its work is with commercial print businesses across Australia and New Zealand, and that it also works remotely with print shops in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Platforms it works with

The consultancy declares specialisation in several systems used in the print industry:

• PrintSmith Vision and Nubium, MIS platforms for production and estimating.
• MarketDirect StoreFront, for web-to-print portals.
• PlanProphet, CRM and sales automation built specifically for the print industry.
• OnPrintShop, an online storefront solution with which it maintains a partnership.
• Google Workspace, as a cloud environment for storage and communication.

Estimating, MIS and data clean-up

In the MIS area, Traction Print works on rebuilding pricing definitions around each shop's real press and finishing costs, on cleaning databases to remove obsolete references, inactive customers and expired rates, and on integrations that avoid re-keying data into other systems. The company maintains that most print businesses use only a small part of their software's native capabilities, and it focuses its work on correcting that underutilisation.

Web-to-print and sales automation

The firm connects online storefronts to the MIS so that orders drop directly into the production queue without manual intervention. To do this, it carries out advanced customisations in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, configures SmartCanvas variable-data templates, and sets up payment gateways, cost centres and corporate approval chains. On the sales side, it integrates tools such as PlanProphet into the existing MIS to automate follow-up on cold quotes and prepress proof reminders. The consultancy cites PlanProphet's own data showing that its automated touchpoints generate an average of $12,800 per month in incremental revenue, and notes that the tool received the 2023 Pinnacle Product Award from Printing United Alliance and is used by over 1,000 print shops worldwide.

File and email infrastructure

Traction Print migrates print shops from ageing local servers to Google Workspace environments designed to handle prepress files and high-resolution PDFs without causing local network latency. The service includes organising shared drives for remote work, fixing SPF, DKIM and DMARC records so emails don't land in spam folders, and protecting client assets with multi-factor authentication and enterprise-grade compliance.

Rates and how to engage

The website states a standard consulting rate of AUD 200 per hour plus GST for Australian clients, while offshore work is exempt from that tax. For ongoing collaborations it offers monthly retainers and prepaid blocks of hours at a reduced rate. New projects involving complex platform work begin with a fixed-price discovery phase, so that scope and cost are known before committing.

Client profile

Among the testimonials collected are a US commercial printer that highlights support with B2B portals and SmartCanvas templates; a New Zealand display and packaging manufacturer that migrated its customer portals from a legacy system to MarketDirect StoreFront; a national print franchise group in Australia that required advanced customisations and deployment across its network; and an Australian state sports association that consolidated its scattered tools into Google Workspace and moved its site to Squarespace.

Location and contact

Phone: +61 468 066 093 · Email: info@tractionprint.com.au