Someone has to manage the vendor relationships. All of this takes time and industry knowledge. Printing is highly technical, not something you can learn overnight. The new online technologies will only get better and better. These printing services will certainly appeal to people who are drawn to Internet shopping and who don't want to deal with the trouble of finding and managing printers themselves.
Printing is complicated.
Making it easy and automated while delivering quality is a winning proposition. But they'll have to make it easier to do business with them. First, they need to build more marketing muscle. The Web firms have staged an aggressive marketing campaign in the print-buying community. Local print shops that only rely on salespeople to attract new business should develop strategic ongoing marketing campaigns to differentiate themselves in whatever niche they occupy.