Images_Digital_Edition_September_2019

IS DECORATOR PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 50 images SEPTEMBER 2019 is increasingly gaining customers through ecommerce sites set up through the WooCommerce and Shopify platforms. “We are developing more small websites so that we can target customers more effectively,” Ed adds. Updates to its websites will allow the company to improve its promotional activity, including social media marketing. “We are not as active with social media as we could be, but we are improving that as it’s the way the market is going.” To keep on top of orders coming from the different ecommerce sites, Signature Printing has adopted a single custom-built solution, which is now being integrated with all its systems. The company’s sales have doubled each year for the past three years, with growth forecast to be 70% for 2019. However, Ed – who is still only 28 – says this is just the beginning. “We have a very long way to go. We are focused on growth and doing it in a way that allows us to remain competitive.” Despite doubling the warehouse space in August to 8,000 square feet through the addition of a mezzanine floor, he predicts they will need more space soon, especially as more online outlets and SKUs are planned by the end of this year. Ed and Hannah are also launching a new venture, Pace, to provide storage and order fulfilment solutions for smaller ecommerce businesses without the warehouse space or infrastructure. Using another warehouse, this is expected to start working with clients by the end of this year. “It is capitalising on what we can do efficiently,” Ed adds. Learning curves Unsurprisingly, the rapid expansion from a business in a bedroom over the past six years has presented many challenges. “We are always looking for growth but the challenge is to deal with it. You don’t want it all to come at once. We have learned as we go. There have been a lot of steep learning curves, from people management to general business growth – all sorts of things that I have had to learn.” At the start, Hannah and Ed were wary of the cost and complication of recruiting staff. “We preferred to work longer hours than delegate to staff,” Ed says. “Having staff and managing people are the most difficult elements of running a business. We held off from hiring people for two or three years. Nobody teaches you how to hire people. It’s the scariest thing for a business: it’s quite expensive and you don’t know what you are getting. But we took that leap and hired our first member of staff and that was the best investment we ever made. Now we have time to run the business and to capture as many customers as we can.” Standing out While the industry is “competitive”, the pair are excited at the business opportunities that lie ahead. Smaller companies may be able to offer lower prices due to lower overheads, but Ed says that Signature Printing is able to “stand out” because of its drive to constantly develop new products, improve quality and maintain service to customers. As well as hiring more staff, Ed and Hannah have introduced staggered shifts from 7am, 9am and 10am, which means the warehouse is operating from early until late as well as on Saturdays and Sundays. However, Ed still believes that working nine-to-five is not the way for him to make a living. “My aim was never just to replicate the nine-to-five I had before,” he says. “What I really wanted to do was to create a business and grow it to the multimillion- pound level. It’s still early days for us.” www.signatureprintinguk.com Having staff and managing people are the most difficult elements of running a business Printing personalised products Weeding an intricate design Ed sees Signature’s drive to constantly develop new products as one of his company’s key strengths