We’re moving!
Anybody who has been to visit us recently will appreciate we’ve been spilling out the doors for a while now. Due to the investment in new equipment and extra staff we’ve been testing the limits of what you can fit into our existing space.
Where are the good business premises in Liskeard?
We’ve been wanting to move for a long time, but we’re loyal to Liskeard. That has created a problem. There is a dearth of good business premises in the town. The people of Liskeard have long felt they get short shrift in respect to its infrastructure – the high parking charges and expensive rates leading to a struggling high street have been well publicised (by Mary Portas, Queen of Shops herself). There’s the lack of play equipment for young children, threats to close public toilets and cuts in other public funding amongst other issues.
The Liskeard Town Team and Liskeard Traders Association have made great progress in galvanising and revitalising the town, but there is still very poor infrastructure for businesses in Liskeard.
Our experience of finding new premises was a frustrating one. Liskeard landlords expect absurdly high rents for the properties on offer. Presumably because they know there is so little available to anyone who insists on staying in the town. For the same cost of an old, run-down unit in Liskeard you could rent a brand new unit on Pennygillam Industrial Estate in Launceston.
Liskeard needs investment in new business units and support provided to its local businesses so they aren’t forced to move to nearby towns.
We’ve landed in Moorswater!
Eventually, we heard of a 3,000 sq ft unit at Moorswater becoming available and were eager to take advantage of the increased space available. The landlord was kind enough to agree to replace the roof, which had seen better days and since then we’ve been working hard to convert the unit to a fully functional print house. We’re happy to say we will be officially moved in on Monday the 18th November.
New contact details
You can visit the Contact Us page for our new details and to see a map of where we are. Here’s a summary:
Print 2 Media Ltd.
Unit 7 Moorswater Industrial Estate
Liskeard, Cornwall
PL14 4LN
Tel. 01579 340985
PLEASE NOTE OUR TELEPHONE NUMBER HAS CHANGED!
We’re announcing the move and news of our expansion to the local press. The words of the press release follow…
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Print 2 Media Ltd., a sign and exhibition services company based in Liskeard, has experienced great success over the last two years by innovating the services and products it offers. So much so they’ve had to move to larger premises.
As the effects of the economic recession began to affect small businesses and caused larger companies to closely watch their margins when putting on large scale events (two important markets for Print 2 Media) the company’s Director, Glenn Wrigley, decided to differentiate.
“Although we’ve retained a healthy turnover of exhibition work, it never does to sit on your laurels! As event organisers started to talk about protecting their margins I decided it was time to put eggs in more than one basket” said Glenn.
He began by utilising the company’s existing print capabilities to produce custom interior wall decor products, including custom printed wallpaper and wall stickers. Print 2 Media worked with a company in Plymouth to build a website that now operates under the trading name of Custom Wall Designs.
Glenn saw the opportunities afforded by this new sales channel and decided to bring web development skills in-house to increase the efficacy (and hence margin) of operating online. He hired an experienced web developer with a marketing background and relaunched Print 2 Media’s own website as a fully operational ecommerce site.
It turns out there are few printers offering an end-to-end service online. The site has quickly gained traction and Print 2 Media now ships signage to customers all over the UK.
The company has been able to reinvest its profits in new equipment, purchasing an additional wide-format printer and laminator to increase capacity and a giclée printer for producing fine art quality canvases and prints.
Print 2 Media has also been able to hire extra staff and Glenn says the choice of hires has been crucial to the development of the company:
“As a small business it’s been really important for us to employ staff with a wide set of skills and interests – not necessarily related to the print industry. Our most recent employee has a degree in Physics!”.
You might think Physics is unrelated to printing signs, but the in-house maths skills have enabled the company to write equations that manipulate the price of signage based on its square metre usage of material. These equations have been plugged into the Print 2 Media ecommerce site and have helped increase online sales.
Unsurprisingly, the additional equipment and extra staff led to a cramped existence in the company’s previous premises. The dearth of useful business units in Liskeard meant the search for a place to move to took longer than expected, but eventually a 3,000 sq ft building came available on Moorswater Industrial Estate and work could begin on converting it for use as a print shop.
Print 2 Media have been operating from the new premises since the 18th November and are revelling in the new space. They’re using it to expand the business further, having purchased all the equipment required for framing their beautiful giclée prints. They’re even building a new website, Prestige Maps, which will sell specialist framed map prints. Why maps? Because of their staff’s interests of course! As keen walkers and climbers with a passion for maps they knew who to speak to in the cartography world, and with in-house marketing experience they were able to pin down license agreements from the likes of the Ordnance Survey and Harvey Maps.
Maybe it’s not about ‘who you know’, but ‘what you know’? That and thinking outside the box…
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