Photobook Shop managing director Peter Thomas told ProPrint the company had gone from selling 1,800 photobooks in July 2011 when the Unibind CaseMaker 750A was installed to 6,000 in January 2012.

Thomas said the new machine had allowed for such tremendous growth because it had a much greater capacity than the Fastbind Casematic XT it had replaced.

“It can make up to 300 books per hour. We would have been lucky to make 300 a week before,” he said.

“If we didn’t buy the CaseMaker, I have no idea how we would’ve made the books we’ve made.”

In January 2011, Photobook Shop had four staff and sold 300 photobooks. There are now 23 staff and counting, according to Thomas.

“We hire about two people per month on average,” he said.

That growth was reflected in the move Photobook Shop made in July 2011 from a 200sqm office in Docklands to a 2,500sqm factory in Northcote.

“The CaseMaker is 12 metres long. It wouldn’t fit in Docklands. We had no choice but to move,” he said.

Thomas said photobooks constituted 90% of the company’s business. He attributed the boom in sales to effective marketing.

There was an even bigger boom last December, when 14,000 photobooks were sold, according to Thomas. He said the company would be installing another CaseMaker in September or October to handle what he predicted would be an even bigger Christmas rush this year.

Photobook Shop started selling to New Zealand last September, he added, and currently ships 150 orders per week.

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