Veteran printers sell offset business, open large-format firm

Large Format Media owners Rod and Mandy Wood started the four-staff operation in March after selling offset business Gateway Printing in 2012.

Rod Wood said LF Media had a potential Perth client base of 2,000 firms. He said the business had so far been marketed to about 100 printers, which had resulted in 50 customers – 30 of which had placed repeat orders.

"The plan is to get to about eight staff. We're not looking at becoming giants. We just want a good niche market and probably 150 customers is what we need," he told ProPrint.

"We expect to turn over around $700,000 in the first 12 months. We were on target for the opening period, but it's going to be an increasing amount of sales we're after."

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Wood said other large-format trade suppliers were generally commercial firms that had developed a trade offering as an add-on. He said that left "a gap in the market" for a trade-only business that wouldn't target end clients.

"It's so hard to get customers and keep them these days, you don't want to give them away to your suppliers."

Wood said LF Media was talking to two national printing chains about supplying their Perth stores.

He also said it would make a good manufacturing partner for east coast companies with nationwide contracts.

LF Media has a "brand new" collection of machinery that includes a SwissQPrint Impala, a Miller Weldmaster, a Graphtec FC8000 cutting plotter, and a Tekcel CNC router with optical registration and reciprocating knife-and-creasing system. It also runs a Print Science web-to-print system, he said.

Wood told ProPrint that the Booragoon-based business had already expanded after agreeing to double its floor space in June with an extra 300sqm. He said although the capacity wasn't yet needed, LF Media took it when it became available in expectation of future growth.

[Related: More news about trade suppliers]

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One thought on “Veteran printers sell offset business, open large-format firm

  1. good luck to you Mandy and Rod, lets hope you are able to stay true as a Trade Only supplier and the trade price does not become the retail price, it is in offset printing where some that have opened continue to operate “trade” in Name Only and devalue the industry

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