A survey of quick printing - one of the fastest-growing of business services

Nation's Business, April, 1990 by Meg Whittemore

A survey of quick printing - one of the fastest-growing of business services.

In 1986, John Anderson did what many corporate middle managers dream of doing: He bought his own business. After 19 years with Diamond Shamrock Corp., an industrial-chemical company headquartered in Cleveland, Anderson decided that although he was paid well as an area manager for the company, he was being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug - and he couldn't ignore it.

Tired of the travel and the frequent relocations required in his job, Anderson and his wife, Judy, decided that Atlanta looked like a good place to buy a business and settle down while their two sons went through high school.

After an exhaustive search for the right business, the Andersons decided on Franklin's Printing & Office Supplies, a quick-printing franchise based in Atlanta. "A friend of mine owned one, and I talked to other Franklin's franchisees," says John Anderson. "The potential profitability numbers were excellent, so we bought it."

His assessment proved correct. In 1989, Anderson averaged $68,000 in gross sales per month, exceeding the quick-printing industry's average of about $20,000 a month.

Twenty-five years ago, while-you-wait printers specializing in small jobs and fast service became part of the business landscape. These so-called quick printers offered primarily photocopying services. As technology improved the quality of copiers, however, quick printers soon handled some of the more sophisticated jobs usually done by commercial printers.

"We're more than nibbling at the big commercial printers now," says Don Lowe, CEO of Sir Speedy Inc., a quick-printing franchise based in Laguna Hills, Calif. "Thanks to improved cameras and presses, the quality of work that a quick printer can produce today is so much better than it was in the early days," he says.

Today there are more than 26,000 quick printers in the U.S., according to the Chicago-based National Association of Quick Printers, and 25 percent are franchised. While the segment still caters to customers who are pressed for time, the many services now offered are far from simple.

Anderson, for example, serves only business clients and handles newsletters, brochures, and office stationery. He does offer limited color printing, however, and his equipment has production capabilities similar to those of commercial printers. "We shoot our own negatives and burn our own plates," he says, "but we still need desktop-publishing capabilities. Our customers demand it." Computerized desktop publishing, typically used for smaller jobs, will be in place by the end of this year, he says.

Maintaining customer loyalty is the overriding concern for quick printers, and some have gone to great lengths to attract and keep their customers. In 1988, PIP Printing, headquartered in Agoura Hills, Calif., launched a research project to find out what businesses in its market base looked for in a printer.

PIP found that their customers were tired of doing business with many different printers and preferred to deal with one knowledgeable printer. PIP soon redefined its customer base. "We repositioned ourselves as the business printer, which is profoundly different from the commercial printer and the corner copy shop," says Thomas Marotto, chief executive officer of PIP.

PIP now concentrates on offering multicolor printing, desktop publishing, high-volume duplicating, and call-ahead ordering. PIP's 850 franchisees across the country had revenues of $263 million in 1989, but Marotto wants to capture a larger share of PIP's customers' printing business. "We want our customers coming to us for all their printing needs," he says. "That is our challenge."

Expanding the current customer base through added services as an attractive marketing approach appeals to Sir Speedy as well. "We don't get close to 100 percent of our customers' printing work," says Lowe. "If we just [got close to] that alone, we could sustain growth for the next five years."

Sir Speedy offers electronic publishing (which includes graphic design and

typography); facsimile transmission and receiving; a wide range of forms, stationery, and business cards; and free pickup and delivery.

Lowe estimates that the business-printing niche that quick printers now serve is a $20 billion to $25 billion market, which is four to five times the size of the quick-printing business in general.

"I think the industry is on the doorstep of the best 10 years in its history," he says.

The real growth, Lowe says, will come with the onset of new color applications and conversion from black-and-white printing. Color work sells for at least four times that of black-and-white, and Lowe thinks most businesses will want to use color printing if they have a choice.

Franklin's president and founder, Hal Collins, points to color copying machines as a lucrative wave of the future. "Business people don't want their presentations to look ordinary," he says. "They don't want black and white. They don't want one color on white. They want full color."