In the ongoing battle to reduce catalog production costs, many mailers look at reducing the basis weight of their paper. This can be a good move, since it typically leads to significant cost savings. But it’s not a decision that should be taken lightly: Going with a lower-weight catalog paper has repercussions as well as advantages.
First, why would you reduce the basis weight or your paper? The initial answer is, naturally, to have less overall weight, and therefore lower costs.
Let’s say your printer needs 500,000 lbs. of 40-lb. paper to produce the catalog, and you’re considering moving down to 38-lb. stock instead. Doing this will reduce the poundage required by 5% to a new total of 475,000 lbs.
So are you 5% ahead? Maybe, maybe not. That’s where it gets interesting.
In nearly all cases, a paper mill’s price structure dictates that as you go down in weight, you go up in price. In the case of 40-lb. paper vs. a 38-lb. stock, whatever price you’re paying for 40 lb. will be $1.50/hundredweight (cwt) more for 38 lb. Here’s the math, using a hypothetical price of $41/cwt for 40 lb.:
- 40-lb. 500,000 lbs. x $41/cwt = $205,000
- 38-lb. 475,000 lbs. x $42.50/cwt = $201,875
= $3,125 savings
By going to lighter paper, you’ve saved $3,125, or just about 1.5%, not 5%. So you might immediately conclude that it’s not worth moving down based on a savings of just 1.5%.
But there’s another key variable you need to look at: postal costs. Although you may have only saved a few thousand dollars in basis weight reduction, you could be saving many thousands more in postage costs. It all depends on your mail class and the weight of your book relative to U.S. Postal Service guidelines.
While it’s impossible to generalize — especially when it comes to your individual catalog and the USPS — it’s worth looking into the potentially significant postage savings you may see with a lower basis weight. Your paper merchant may be able to help you with this, and your printer should be able to supply a definitive answer. Going lighter may have no impact at all on your postal costs, or it could yield substantial savings.
Another consideration for lightening your paperweight may have less to do with cost reduction and more to do with gaining potential revenue. Going lighter may enable you to increase page count while staying under USPS weight guidelines.
This way you can get more of your products in front of your customers. A lower weight that enables you to add eight more pages of merchandise to your book could be quite beneficial.
COVER YOURSELF
Besides possible cost reductions for reducing basis weight, you should consider other variables, such as show-through. What kind of coverage does the catalog paper provide?
Basis weight reduction combined with heavy ink coverage may produce less than desirable results. In general, as you go down in weight, you lose opacity.
According to William Bureau, in an article for Graphic Arts Monthly, “Opacity describes the extent to which paper can hide what is behind it, or the degree to which paper can obscure a nonuniform or patterned background, like printed images.”
Going from a 40-lb. paper to a 38-lb. may be indiscernible as far as opacity is concerned. But bigger leaps downward may produce more show-through than you’re willing to accept.
Will the show-through to the next page annoy your customer or diminish the product’s overall appearance? Will the copy be more difficult to read because of an interfering image from the other side of the sheet? You must closely evaluate this in your decision.
Besides decreased opacity, will a basis weight reduction lead to your customer viewing the catalog as being flimsy or cheap? Again, you need to consider your merchandise and your clientele. Taking an auto parts catalog down five or 10 points in basis weight may have no effect on the customer’s perception, but moving down this much on a high-end furniture title could prove troublesome.
BULKING UP
Is there a way around the flimsy issue when it comes to lighter paper? Yes, there are a few unique paper grades that can address the flimsy factor and, to a certain extent, the opacity question.
These paper grades, produced by a few different manufacturers, are referred to as “bulking grades.” Because of the type of pulp used to produce this paper, it has an inherently higher caliper, or “bulk,” than comparable grades of the same weight. The sheet of paper has a higher caliper, and is literally thicker.
Using a bulking grade allows a cataloger to go lighter in weight without the customer noticing any change. As a reader turns a catalog or magazine page, he or she is actually feeling the thickness of the sheet more than the weight.
According to Jim Wright, director of specialty sales for Catalyst Paper, “Because of the unique bulking properties of Catalyst’s grades, a cataloger or publisher can actually reduce the weight of the paper and retain the same heft of a heavier sheet.” In some cases, he says, a direct mailer using a 40-lb. basis weight may be able to drop to a 36-lb. grade and retain the same feel as the 40-lb.
What about the cover for the catalog — can basis weight reduction help here? As mentioned earlier, paper mills’ price structures dictate, in almost all cases, when the weight goes down, the price will rise.
But there is an often overlooked bargain secret in the paper industry — that 70-lb. and 80-lb. freesheet paper carry the same cost.
So if your current cover is on an 80-lb. sheet and you’re willing to move down to a 70-lb. stock, you’ve instantly saved 12.5% in yield — without any increased cost for the paper.
But since most people do, in fact, judge a book by its cover, carefully consider what your customer’s perception of a lighter cover may be. Proportionate to the text, the cover is the least expensive component of the two from a page-count aspect. Spending money on heavy, quality cover paper can be a smart and cost-efficient way to upgrade your catalog’s image, look and feel.
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The Green Factor
Previous Page: Cover Yourself
Going lighter in catalog paper weight can have many benefits, from cost reduction to helping the environment and reducing your carbon footprint. Make sure, though, that you consult with your paper merchant and printer to be certain you have weighed all the advantages and possible concerns before you go lighter.
Daniel T. Walsh ([email protected]) is vice president, catalog papers for Chicago-based paper merchant Bradner Smith & Co.
THE GREEN FACTOR
In addition to lower costs and potentially more selling pages, reducing your catalog paper’s basis weight can make your book more earth-friendly. Any basis weight reduction is going to account for less paper. Say you’re changing to a 36-lb. paper from a 40-lb. stock. That equates to a 10% reduction.
So if you originally needed 500,000 lbs. of paper to produce the catalog, you now will need only 450,000 lbs. That’s fewer trees cut down, a reduction in manufacturing chemicals, less water, and less energy used to produce the 36-lb. book.
Here’s another easy-to-see environmental benefit: less fuel to get your paper to your printer. A truck holds about 44,000 lbs. of paper. In the example above, you’ve just eliminated one entire truck, its fuel usage, and the associated greenhouse gases. You’ve effectively decreased your company’s carbon footprint, and saved money on paper at the same time.
— DTW