State of the Industry

Posted on January 19, 2012 by akazi No Comments

A reality check. As quoted by Bob Hall, writer for myprintresource.com, the NAPL Trends Report on the quick and small commercial industry segment demonstrates decreased average sales, rising costs and a fairly large amount of uncertainty. But a deeper look into the statistics show some positive signs: Companies that grew (57.7 percent) during the study period outnumbered those that declined (42.3 percent). Top companies reported sales growth of nine percent and some 40 percent of companies expected at least some growth in 2011 (as mentioned by Hall).

Consolidation has been a prominent activity in the recent past. It is said that in 1991 there were 5,454 franchise shops, today there are 2,656. That being said, average sales per shop grew from $370,000 to $617,000 in the same period. Kodak, for example, folded in a number of other companies such as ENCAD, NexPress Solutions, Creo, etc. Presstek acquired AB Dick, which itself had acquired Itek and AM Multi earlier in this 20 year survey period. Ricoh acquired IKON Office Solutions and InfoPrint. Canon now is consolidated with Océ. Locally, we have Surrey Digital and ARC, formerly Arcprint, making acquisitions and following this trend in their respective regions.

Now profit centers for several smaller companies are often non-print products and services. Generally speaking, offset printing has steadily declined while digital printing has experienced a sharp climb. Design and print services that offer a one stop solution to local business activities are doing better than their competition who have limited services.