viralprint-logoBack in 2005 Doug Sleeth founded Printer Shoppe, a wholesale graphic design and printing company (non MLM) that marketed their services and products to US-based businesses.

As I understand it, Printer Shoppe retail centers (electronic kiosks) were set up in participating retail stores who would then, through the kiosks, sell Printer Shoppe’s printing and graphic services at a retail level.

In June 2011 Sleeth then decided to expand his business and launched ViralPrint to expand Printer Shoppe’s retail offering to a wider market.

Read on for a full review of the ViralPrint business opportunity.

The ViralPrint Product Line

ViralPrint, presumably through Printer Shoppe’s established printing network market a variety of printing services. These include business cards, postcards and tri-fold brochures.

I’m not sure whether ViralPrint themselves count Printer Shoppe as a partner but the company does mention that they themselves don’t handle the printing side of the business.

Rather ViralPrint defer the actual printing work to “printing partners” and instead focus on the retail side of things.

The ViralPrint Compensation Plan

ViralPrint use a unilevel compensation plan that pays out 5 levels deep. With a unilevel compensation structure, you are placed at the top and for each customer you acquire, they are placed directly underneath you.

In ViralPrint customers and members are one and the same with every customer you acquire being able to go on and find customers themselves.

In this manner each customer you yourself refer becomes your level 1, and any customers/members your level 1 refer to the company become your level 2 and so on and so forth.

Using this unilevel structure, ViralPrint pay out commissions on all product sales made by anyone who falls within 5 levels of your unilevel team:

  • Level 1 – 10%
  • Level 2 – 5%
  • Level 3 – 3%
  • Level 4 – 2%
  • Level 5 – 1%

Joining ViralPrint

ViralPrint membership is free.

Conclusion

The biggest advantage of ViralPrint’s compensation plan is that it strongly compliments their product offering. Printing and graphic services are a truly consumable product and with commissions only being paid out on sales, there’s no incentive to just recruit new members and move on.

Instead, ViralPrint members will have to focus on sales and retaining customers if they wish to grow their business and enjoy success.

The ViralPrint compensation plan does lean more towards an affiliate style setup but most definitely does pay out on multiple levels, allowing members to build teams if they so wish. Note that doing so alone won’t generate commissions as products and services still need to be ordered.

Internal consumption also doesn’t seem to be an issue due to the fact that you are only paid out on other people’s orders.

In a greater marketing sense it is worth noting that the paper publishing industry is quite well established and competition is going to be steep. As a new ViralPrint member, given that you’re entirely going to be relying on attracting new members and customers (the lack of differentiation in the compensation plan is a non-issue given there are no membership fees), how effectively you can market ViralPrint’s products is critical.

I’d strongly suggest that any new members themselves do a test purchase to evaluate the quality of ViralPrint’s products and see if they’d feel comfortable marketing them to a wider audience. Also it’d be worthwhile evaluating your competition and seeing how they compare pricewise.

ViralPrint do offer a general favourable comparison on their website but a local comparison (online/offline) wouldn’t hurt.

In the age of the internet traditional paper marketing might have taken a back seat but the simple business card is still a staple of traditional face-to-face offline marketing.

If you’re happy with ViralPrint’s products and pricepoints and feel you can establish a customerbase, business model wise ViralPrint seems like a solid opportunity to have a crack at.