Biggest franchise store boosts sales

Australia’s biggest franchise print shop has boosted sales by six per cent with a focus on providing on-demand service.

Snap Circular Quay now has a turnover of about $3.5m after last financial year’s growth and has added two more sales reps to handle the influx of new clients, bringing staff total to 16.

Owner Richard Cook says the franchise is sales driven, competing for business in the crowded and cutthroat Sydney CBD market, and uses service to stand out.

“We try to be responsive and proactive both in selling print to our clients, and delivering products to them quickly,” he says.

“All digital print is on demand so we need to be on demand about everything we do – be it answering the phone, quotes, or turnaround – or we will not be successful.

“Digital print is also more service-driven than other kinds so you have to be on top of your game when there is so much competition.”

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While the centre of Australia’s biggest city, packed with company headquarters and retail business, is a fertile client base – it comes with a cost.

“The area we are in helps and many of our clients are in the financial services sector, but we also pay the highest rents in the country, they can be easily double other stores,” he says.

It has been almost three years since Cook brought the business back from the brink after CBD Printing, which owned the centre, collapsed and he says customer service kept it all together.

“Focusing on good customer service and building a motivated staff culture got us back on track and have the business growing again. I know it is a cliché, but it works,” he says.

“Having the right mentality and culture made recovery a lot easier than it would have been, so setting that up was the first task, and it helped us hold onto clients at the beginning. Nothing is insurmountable if you have a good foundation.”

Cook has also won a five-night holiday to Rome in a Fuji Xerox competition to promote its rebranded Colour eXpressions digital coated paper, of which Snap Circular Quay is a big buyer.

The winner was chosen at random from printers around the country that bought significant amounts of the paper earlier this year.

Fuji Xerox product and marketing manager Nayef Abourizk says the two companies have a long partnership history, and Fuji Xerox was a founding member of Snap’s gold partner program.

“Over the many years both companies have enjoyed strong growth through the use of Fuji Xerox leading technology, software and paper supplies and consumables, allowing Snap centres to stay at the top of their game,” he says.

Cook says the holiday, which he will take in November, is a chance to both get a break and think strategically about his business while not in the midst of day-to-day operations.

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