City printer eyes gold rush after expanding into mining boom town

Mark Kennedy has added Snap Kalgoorlie to his franchise on St Georges Terrace in Perth. He valued the deal at $450,000.

"I bought the business because of confidence in the Snap brand and Snap systems and confidence in the future of Kalgoorlie," he told ProPrint.

Kennedy said he planned to grow and diversify the store by boosting its marketing and enhancing its graphic design and online services offering.

He said he would be able to generate efficiencies from his two franchises through sharing design and marketing work and also staff.

Snap Kalgoorlie's previous owner, Mike Clark, told ProPrint he had decided to move on after 16 years because he had become too old to run the business.

[Feature: Franchises are remaining resilient]

Clark, 66, said he had grown its turnover from $300,000 to more than $1 million, while cutting the headcount from six to three.

He said that was despite struggling to learn the technical elements of printing, and also to master computers, after coming from a non-print background.

"The main highlight was taking something on as a real challenge and struggling and seeing the fruits of that struggle materialise towards the end of my time there."

Clark said he initially planned to retire just before the GFC, but postponed the sales process after seeing the financial crisis wipe 50% from his turnover.

"I think I got about half of what I would have been expected to get had the business been in a capital city," he added.

Kennedy said a new employee had been hired to replace Clark and that he hoped to one day add a fourth staffer.

[Related: More WA news]

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