The Smart Card Store supplies smart ID cards to a well-established client base of both end-users and trade customers. Guy Hudson will remain as managing director of the eight-staff business, which will continue to operate at its current premises and will retain its own identity and branding.
The acquisition, which was completed in November, takes Digital ID group’s total headcount to just over 60.
Digital ID serves businesses of all sizes with ID card hardware, consumables and supplies. It also has an in-house bureau for designing and printing cards, operating a range of machinery including Fargo HDP5000s, IDP Smart 70s and IDP Smart 51s.
As well as using the kit itself, it supplies all of these printers as well as many others to the UK ID card market.
Digital ID Group managing director Jonathan Fell said: “This acquisition enables the Digital ID Group to evolve its growth strategy to enhance the organic growth we have achieved already this year.”
Digital marketing manager Adam Bennett added: “We’ve been supplying The Smart Card Store for a while – they’ve been purchasing a range of accessories and consumables from us.
"There’s always been a good relationship between us and what we also liked is that they do really well on the technology side, in terms of the access control, the encoding side, and all of the RFID. You tend to find that that market area is a lot bigger; the size of the projects are bigger."
He added: “They will now be able to grow their customers more with ID products and we now have a route into bigger projects with access control. They can also lean on all of our unique selling points.
“A big thing for them is that we have our own technical support team in-house. A lot of the resellers will either come to us when they have a problem or will have to go direct to the manufacturer, but because we have that team of five in-house, and also have direct distribution deals with IDP, Magicard and Fargo, the support that we can offer outweighs everything else.
“This is a massive selling point for The Smart Card Store when they’re winning new business in bigger projects or bespoke projects because they can give that reassurance that if there’s a fault for whatever reason, they’ll get a loan printer on site and technical support, which is what a customer wants to see.”
The Digital ID Group is on track to achieve 42% organic growth in 2017 and the acquisition of The Smart Card Store, which has a turnover of £2.5m, brings the group’s total turnover to around £20m.
Launched in 1990, family-run Digital ID has additional offices in London, Gothenburg and Amsterdam.
