Gold Coast based Foyer Printing has been bucking the downward trend with a 20 per cent growth since February, mainly in wholesale trade printing as small printers in the area sell their kit and focus on sales. The business prints flyers, brochures, business cards and stationery, posters, banners and signage among other items, as well as magazines, which is another boom area for the printer.

Speaking with Australian Printer Ron Rankin – who set up his business 15 years ago – says, he has experienced a ‘bumper crop’ since the beginning of 2015, and there is ‘no sign of slowing down’. Rankin says, “It has been a strong couple of years for us and since February, when we purchased a pre-owned five-colour A2 Komori the business has boomed. “We also brought in more finishing equipment, which propelled us into the magazine sector, and now from printing one magazine a week we have increased to printing five.” Rankin says he realises that the industry has been ‘flat’ for many printers, but says his business is ‘bucking the trend, which is also promising for everyone else’. He says the industry however is ‘changing’, with several small print companies selling their machines, but keeping their clients. “Once they have sold off their machines and downsized, they find a big and reliable print company and outsource their jobs to them. So the small print businesses are becoming the middleman between their clients and the big printers, and end up making a decent living,” Rankin says. “This is where we come in because we are picking up those jobs, and wholesale is where the business is experiencing the growth.” Rankin says in 2014 he invested in several new and second hand machines, including the Europa laminating system, which has allowed Foyer to take on more jobs. “We were very busy last year and so we had to invest in a lot of equipment, most of which were second hand because of the number of printing businesses closing or changing to digital,” he says. He says Foyer has also employed more staff to ‘cope with the extra work’. “Last year this time we had 30 staff and today we have 40 full-timers. We have hired one staff a month in the last six months to keep up with the workload and we are taking on more staff,” he says.

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