The Netherlands-headquartered business was founded in 2018 by captain Marco Aarnink, who prior to starting the business owned Dutch online printshop Drukwerkdeal. He sold Drukwerkdeal to Cimpress in 2014.
Print.com offers trade print services to designers, marketers, resellers and printers through its site or via custom APIs that can integrate with clients' existing ERP or MIS.
The business has country specific storefronts and around 160 production partners throughout Europe – it also has two production facilities in the Netherlands. Headcount is in excess of 350.
However, the UK business represents its first platform outside of the EU.
The UK operation is headed by country captain Fiona Robinson, who has a near 20-year print background, most recently as operations director at Works Manchester.
Robinson joined Print.com in March to establish the UK business and secure the first production partners. She simultaneously worked with the developers to create sterling storefront and began building a UK team.
“The Print Show was our ‘set-in-stone’ deadline to officially launch the UK business and be ready to start accepting our first orders,” said Robinson.
“As of now we can take orders in pounds.”
It has also secured its first four UK production partners, which Robinson declined to name other than to quip they were “the usual suspects”.
“We have a lot of core products covered with our existing [UK] partners, and others I can place at our own facilities – but I’m still keen to expand our UK partner network.”
The current product range includes items like books and brochures, stationery and packaging, flyers and leaflets, banners and signage, labels and corporate gifts, and clothing and events graphics.
“The product range is massive and you can chose any combination. The business is all about expanding the creative options in print whenever possible,” said Robinson.
She added its other USP was employing print experts in customer facing roles to ensure they can support clients and partners alike.
Similarly, central to Robinson’s plan for the UK operation is to grow the business sustainably to ensure customer and partner expectations are in sync.
“When Marco set up the business, he didn’t want it to be another that simply tells customers ‘these are the products we make, so this is what you are going to buy from us’.
“He came at it from the other way round, he got 100 early adopters in The Netherlands and asked them ‘what do you need, what do you want, what do you like, what do you not like?’ and built it from that perspective.”
