Sydney outfit Carbon8 has grown its direct mail and invitation business by five times in less than three months after installing its first laser printer. Relaxing its no-laser rule to satisfy requests for smaller invitation and mail companion pieces to its mainstay of Indigo-printed books, business cards, larger invitations and brochures, the company says its Intec ColorSplash CS5000 from distributor Onyx Solutions is steadily growing a new revenue stream for the business. Director Kenneth Beck says clients have been requesting this kind of work for some time, with the company was outsourcing it in small quantities, as it felt that machines on the market were not fast enough or had issues with quality. He tells Australian Printer, “When somebody requested work requiring a laser printer we always said no, we do not print laser, we print with ink. And we were not particularly confident outsourcing it, in case it was not delivered to us in time.
Kenneth Beck and business partner Peter Musarra
“Now we are finding that we have enough of this work to bring a machine inhouse, work that the Indigo is probably over-engineered for. Clients kept asking for it, so finally we decided to plunge into the market.” The five-colour ColorSplash offers an extra station for white toner as well as CMYK, with the promise of clear toner to come – a strong selling point, says Beck, reinforced with the offer of a month’s trial from Onyx. Beck says, “It is hard to assess quality and reliability before you own a machine. We have been reluctant in the past to commit to one. Onyx was willing to offer it to us on a try before you buy basis, which gave us an opportunity to confirm that it was what they promised for a month. “I don’t think we would have taken a risk on a smaller machine like this on just the promise of a salesperson.” Three months on from its November installation Beck says the ColorSplash is taking on ‘trickier’ work involving heavy papers and envelopes on a smaller scale than an Indigo can handle. He says, “We are really happy with it. I think we are easily producing five times as much in a couple of months than we were outsourcing. “Previously we would not have even suggested this kind of work to our customers, I don’t think we really thought of it as a revenue stream, we were focused on our core business. “We are pretty diverse already in the kinds of work we do, but this is an example of the right way to diversify. It adds to our existing offering and has been an immediate success.”
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