Member Article

North East print firm expands into Europe

A family run print business has expanded its reach into mainland Europe after recording a steady surge in demand from outside the UK.

JAK Print & Design, which has offices in Chester-le-Street and Darlington, has launched its full variety of services into a number of key European markets including France, Spain, Germany and Portugal.

The company – run by father and son team John and Andrew Knowles – offers a wide range of graphic design and full colour printing services.

After receiving enquiries from both independent businesses and household corporate names on the Continent, the business took the decision to grow its workforce with the addition of a translation expert and began selling into Europe.

It has adapted to meet this expansion by translating a number of pages on its website as well as adding a currency convertor tool. The firm has also looked into European trading laws and sourced a fast European courier company to ensure prompt delivery.

This expansion was further accelerated after JAK experienced a large number of UK entrepreneurs signing up for its Print Reseller programme, making it the perfect time for the firm to open its programme to the European market and start actively looking for partners.

Andrew Knowles said: “As our company has grown we have found ourselves picking up more and more clients from outside of the UK so offering a European service seemed the sensible thing to do. It is also satisfying that people still opt to purchase from the UK in this very competitive global marketplace.

“This expansion demonstrates our strong commitment to our diversification strategy and further expands our enterprise offerings in Europe, adding both breadth and depth to our product and customer portfolios.

“We can ship a product for the next working day within the UK and it only takes an extra day to freight right across Europe, so the world literally is our oyster.”

While JAK has a number of clients buying direct from Europe, a vast amount of its European orders are still placed by UK-based graphic designers and marketing companies looking to ship directly to their clients.

Alongside its competitive prices, the firm’s ability to provide a rapid dispatch service on selected products has helped to build its European customer base.

The fact that it also uses UK-based quality paper stocks on certain business cards which aren’t widely available in Europe has also fuelled its growth in overseas sales.

Although JAK is considered a specialist business card company, it also provides a wide variety of high-quality printed products at cost-effective prices.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Harvey and Hugo .