2017 summary of the year

The first two weeks of January was a time to reflect on last year’s successes and failures. 2017 has been an extremely busy and productive year for everyone in the team. We have achieved so much since 2016, including further development of HTML5-based editors, launching new corporate website, introducing recurrent webinars and much more.

We’ve spent this year primarily on the development of HTML5 editors so that they would be useful and user-friendly for both the user and the administrator. We have added a lot of functions to the editors themselves, to the administrative panel and to the E-commerce. The changes were of an evolutionary nature, although some of them brought a huge positive impact on customers’ sales.

Take a look at the summary of what happened in 2017.

Customization of the sales process

Companies that have customized sales process can increase their revenue selling personalized photo products. Photobooks and calendars should have a different buying path and simple products like canvas or gadgets should be created differently. That’s why we’ve made a totally flexible process to customize user journeys.

• Multilayer skin options and skin rendering. Read more here.
• Gallery of pictures assigned for value of an attribute in the product card. Read more here.
• Importing photos from previous projects (My photos). Learn more here.
• New project visualization in the preview for simple products. Read more here.

Take a look at the video:

• Possibility to change the value of the attribute during the design process. More info here.
• Attribute changes in the cart, like changing the type of the paper. More on this topic here.
• Changes related to SEO: code review and friendly “urls”. Read more here.
• Products available in packages with a correct value of the specific quantity, including bulk prices. More info here.
• Powerful engine to calculate the final price based on selected values of attributes. More info here.
• The list of created projects in the E-commerce – “My projects” tab. Learn more here.

Stability and reliability

We’ve done multiple system improvements to ensure your big and very busy website to handle even the biggest sales peaks with only high performance. Printbox’s infrastructure is stress tested for constant high loads, to ensure stability and reliability. Take a look at the most important features that we’ve implemented in 2017.

• Project validation and a new tab in the advanced editor: Notices. You can find details here.

Take a look at the video:

• Server optimizations to improve system reliability even at the largest sales peaks. Learn more here.
• Safe area validation for text component to check if there is text field outside the safe area. More on this topic here.
• New sales reports per combination of attribute values. More on this here.

Powerful project editing

Designing an editor for both professionals and amateur poses a number of challenges. In 2017 we’ve been concentrating on the most important thing – to polish the editing and buying process to make the journey engaging and fun. On the other hand – we are giving you the creative freedom to decide about the process. Take a look at the changes and improvements:

• Custom events in the calendar with special style and color of the event. Learn more here.
• New calendar type with a grid. More info here.
• Drag and drop option for slides and photos in the all pages view. Details can be found here.
• We’ve added over 50 new google fonts to our editor, and we’ve improved the preview. Here’s a note about this feature.
• Editable colors of the calendar. More on this here.
• Photo as a background option in the advanced editor for photobooks and calendars. Learn more here.

Take a look at the video:

• Custom frames and masks in the advanced editor. This solution coexists with the simple frames option. More here.
• Personalized thumbnails in the cart with the first page design. More here.
• Components blocking in the workspace and new values in the admin panel. More on this feature here.
• Personalized prompts with your custom texts. Details can be found here.

Visual changes and upgrades

We’ve redesigned the advanced editor completely to be more user-friendly and developed the responsive version of the advanced editor for photobooks. We’ve also added some fun to the editor, by providing an animation in the preloader. It appears during the first few seconds after entering to the advanced editor (for photobooks and calendars).
Read more on the new design and on the preloader.

Take a look at the video:

Printbox is committing to offer you the best possible user journeys within current and new editors for a variety of photo products. Thanks to the constant development, we’ve launched brand new editors: for the most advanced product on the personalized market – photo album and for the simplest editor – prints.

• Photoalbums PRO. The process of creating such complicated item with many options is super-fast and easy. Take a look at the details here.
• Prints editor. We’ve redesigned and redeveloped the whole editor for Prints, so it has a brand new architecture with new possibilities. Learn more here.
  We’ve also designed responsive layouts to better reflect user journeys on mobile devices. You can find details here.

Refreshed corporate website and regular webinars

Printbox’s corporate website: getprintbox.com has been given a refresh. It still includes complete information on the organization and the system but we’ve made it easier for you to get the data needed. Additionally, we’ve also expanded on the Key Features tab. It now includes links to the most important features.

Our business is rapidly growing thanks to the robust capabilities of the Printbox platform and our committed customers. The goal of our refreshed website is to give customers and prospects the information they need to meet their needs. That’s why except for a better and more useful website – we’ve launched regular webinars.

In 2017 we’ve hosted 12 webinars. We introduced you to our editors and showed you a live demo. It was a great success so we’ve decided to run and expand webinars to educate you, answer your questions and give away coupons for Printbox.
Here’s an invitation for next, 2018, webinars:

Sign up now for the next webinar.

And the last thing (but not the least) – people!

During the last year, new people have joined the Printbox team. A warm welcome to our new team members: Gosia, Emiliana, Maja, Hubert S., Zsolt, Richard, Maciek, Miłosz, Łukasz, Tomek Z., Tomek M., Alan, Szymon, Michał, Hubert Z. Welcome on board! So for now, we are 48, including management and support. And we are still expanding: we are looking for the new colleagues, please check our actual vacancies here.

Our family of partner companies also is getting bigger. We’ve got customers in 30 countries on 5 continents.

Although 2017 was a successful year, there was also a sad part. Radek, our friend and colleague passed away. We miss him very much and wish his family much strength at this difficult time.

Summary & future

From everyone at Printbox, we’d like to say thank you, and invite you in for an even better 2018. We have a lot of exciting things prepared for you. This year is also going to be a busy and exciting year as we look to add more features.

To keep up to date with all of our progress, please feel free to subscribe to our newsletter, LinkedIn or say hello on Facebook and Twitter.

See you next month!