At Graphic Company Goes, two things are very important to them: moving with customer demands and being able to produce these orders themselves. This ensures that in 2020 they supply a lot of printed corrugated cardboard. A product that they cleverly used during the corona crisis as a cheaper alternative for partitions. At the beginning of April 2020, they started selling it online with great success. Director Chris van Antwerpen tells us how things are going in Goes.
CLIENT
GBG
Since
2019
Software
WhiteLabelShop
PitchPrint editor
Producing everything yourself
Graphic Company Goes is a total supplier in the print market. “From a traditional printing company we have grown to a broader offer with digital print, signage and cartonage,” Chris explains. “From just printing alone you can no longer make a living. Our growth lies in cartonage. Corrugated board productions such as displays have become our core business. We do over 90 percent of all this work ourselves. That is what makes us strong: we guarantee quality and delivery times ourselves.” Chris maintains the regional focus of his family business. “That’s roughly from the Southwest Netherlands to Tilburg. A target group we know well and can give personal attention to.”
Emerging strong from the credit crisis
The corona crisis was not the first crisis Chris faced. “The credit crisis in 2008 was a turning point. A positive one, that is. We grew from 12 people to 32 employees. That had everything to do with the fact that we were constantly taking new products into production. Did a customer want something we couldn’t make yet? Then we would take care of that internally. The reverse was also true. When there was no more demand for a product, we discontinued its production.”
Going strong in the current crisis
This ensures that the company has a good buffer in the current crisis. “Of course, we do miss the peaks from which we normally have to make the profits. Still, we were able to respond quickly to the new situation. A friend of mine has a hair salon and wanted to install partitions in it. He unfortunately cannot open his business at the moment, but is already working on a safe environment for customers when he can. Plexiglas walls, however, are far too expensive for such entrepreneurs. The question arose whether I could do something with corrugated cardboard. That was on Sunday. Immediately on Monday I sat down with my designers to come up with good and inexpensive corrugated walls. On Friday night we were able to go live with the offer for this.”
Online offerings online in a week
For these quick actions, we worked with all our might on the products as well as on the webshop where this had to be placed in. “We already had a Prindustry webshop for several years. In the early years we had a nice turnover. However, when the big internet printers emerged, we put our webshop on the back burner. Just before the crisis the idea occurred to tackle this again, but with a specific product instead of the entire assortment. And then only with our own products. This all gained momentum with the corrugated walls plan. Within a week, with a lot of help from the software guys at Prindustry, we prepared this product offering in the webshop. Entrepreneurs can easily order the corrugated walls online and personalize this with their own logo or text.”
Social successes with corrugated cardboard
The unique and inexpensive product caught on immediately, in part due to targeted social media campaigns. “Within the first weekend we immediately shot from 0 to 50 orders,” Chris says enthusiastically. “On social media you can advertise very specifically on certain industries or places. For example, one day we target a group of dentists and another day we target the city of Rotterdam. In the latter case, we do that to practically combine the deliveries into one route. What also helped was my friend’s promotion on the Facebook page of his trade association of hairdressers. Many of his colleagues were also totally into this product. Conveniently, the walls can still be used after the crisis. For example, as a display at a trade show.”
Looking ahead and moving along
Whether such trade shows will still take place this year is an uncertain fact. “That applies to our customers, but also to ourselves,” Chris concludes contemplatively. “In November we always participate in a large trade fair in Goes. We are already working on the question of how we will cope if this does not go ahead. Especially now it is more important than ever that we look at opportunities and new markets.”
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