London Print Brokers extends into Eastern Europe and Asia

London Print Brokers have signed contracts with new suppliers in Poland and Shanghai, to extend the portfolio of products and services which they are able to offer their customers.

London Print Brokers' founder and CEO Steve Laker commented on the recent deals:

“This is not to say that we're out-sourcing all of our customers' printing to our new partners. In fact, all of our existing customers' work will continue to be sourced via our suppliers in the UK. By retaining our UK supply chain, we retain the ability to project-manage and quality-check our customers' projects on our suppliers' premises and equipment. We pride ourselves on the added value which our print management service represents to our customers, both existing and new and will continue to operate with a UK-based supply chain as we always have.

“Even for specialist print brokers like us - with a trade-only supply chain and buying power - some projects are so cost-sensitive that it's hard to compete on price in the UK print market. Larger print projects like catalogues and menus for national companies are the reserve of only a few UK-based printers with printing equipment dedicated to those accounts on an almost full-time basis. These projects have long lead times and are suited to production overseas. If a job is needed quickly and we were to employ our European or Chinese production facilities, the cost of air freight would cancel out any savings made on the printing. Sea freight from Europe only takes a few days but from China, a few weeks is typical.

“With our Eastern European and Chinese partners, we can compete on price for the largest print projects currently produced by the UK market on home turf. In much the same way that we represent a collective of trade-only suppliers in the UK, now we are effectively an out-sourced sales resource for the Polish and Chinese printing industries. Our overseas partners are groups of companies with equipment just as diverse as that to which we have access in the UK.

“Of course, price is important to our customers but not their only consideration when choosing us to manage their print. They employ us in a management capacity to oversee their print projects, often from concept to delivery. By extension, we do the same with our overseas partners and have built trusting relationships in the process of arranging these partnerships.”

So assuming that timescales permit, London Print Brokers can now undertake what was traditionally the preserve of a few large UK-based printing companies.

07/04/10: London Print Brokers is now Optimus Print Solutions. Visit our new website here.