Expanding a profitable established business

[Eric Bruce]

Hi all,

I have joined forces with a friend who has a 15 year established printer cartridge sales business offering same-day deliveries to the local area (Greater Manchester). He runs remotely from a van but he can no longer cope with the workload of deliveries so has drafted me in. We now have two vans on the road.

I really want to help my friend further expand this low overheads high markup little business so i’ve come on here to see what the experienced heads think of what they would do from this position. In what other ways can we generate more business?

Short term goals are to generate more business in the area and surrounding areas - long term looking to franchise it.

We currently rely on good SEO, word of mouth and an already solid customer base for the orders of both B2C and B2B, but the progress is slow. Thinking possibly of an ongoing Google PPC campaign with a reputable company who have experience with this kind of industry. Open to all ideas.

Any thoughts welcome, thanks in advance.

 

[Fagin2021]

Printer cartridge sales is a competitive business with some big-name national players. At present you have a competitive advantage in being local area with an established customer base.

Why do you think you'd be as successful if you tried to expand beyond the local area?

My first thought would be to sell add-on/complementary products into the existing customer base and local area. Leverage your existing strengths and make use of your current assets (eg. vans).

 

[Eric Bruce]

Printer cartridge sales is a competitive business with some big-name national players. At present you have a competitive advantage in being local area with an established customer base.

Why do you think you'd be as successful if you tried to expand beyond the local area?

My first thought would be to sell add-on/complementary products into the existing customer base and local area. Leverage your existing strengths and make use of your current assets (eg. vans).

Hi there, thanks for the prompt response,

Why do you think you'd be as successful if you tried to expand beyond the local area?
I kind of meant gently bleed into more local areas, as in the next local postcodes as we now have the man power.

Complementary products crossed my mind too, assuming you mean paper, stationary, peripherals etc

 

[Deleted member 335660]

Hi all,

I have joined forces with a friend who has a 15 year established printer cartridge sales business offering same-day deliveries to the local area (Greater Manchester). He runs remotely from a van but he can no longer cope with the workload of deliveries so has drafted me in. We now have two vans on the road.

I really want to help my friend further expand this low overheads high markup little business so i’ve come on here to see what the experienced heads think of what they would do from this position. In what other ways can we generate more business?

Short term goals are to generate more business in the area and surrounding areas - long term looking to franchise it.

We currently rely on good SEO, word of mouth and an already solid customer base for the orders of both B2C and B2B, but the progress is slow. Thinking possibly of an ongoing Google PPC campaign with a reputable company who have experience with this kind of industry. Open to all ideas.

Any thoughts welcome, thanks in advance.

You have done well within business but you need to watch out for the likes of HP and their instant printing service. I have moved over to this.

As already mentioned complementary products like paper wouldn’t be good as they are quite heavy to carry.

Have you tried a “Recommend a fried” deal. You have a good customer base and that might help you get into other postal codes.

 

[Eric Bruce]

You have done well within business but you need to watch out for the likes of HP and their instant printing service. I have moved over to this.

As already mentioned complementary products like paper wouldn’t be good as they are quite heavy to carry.

Have you tried a “Recommend a fried” deal. You have a good customer base and that might help you get into other postal codes.

Hey, re HP I had this myself until I got involved with this business. It's a lazy mans subscription like a lot of things now. Peoples busy lives seem to be leaning more and more towards automated and convenient living it seems.

Recommend a friend deal would be useful I think, I know i'm much more likely to use a service a friend recommends rather than one I found off a review site.