Sales at the group were effectively flat in the six months to 31 August, rising by 1% to £13.37m. Underlying operating profit fell by a third to £330,000. Pre-tax profit more than halved, from £727,000 to £326,000.

The firm’s share price fell by more than 6% to a new 52-week low of 1.74p on the news. The 52-week high is 6.37p.

In a statement, the firm said that it was growing new revenues but these sales were in competitive areas of the market, which had squeezed operating profits.

Print sales overall rose 1% to £9.84m, and within that sales at Printed.com grew by 17% following the integration of Goodprint. Printed.com has also added additional products to its range that are produced by external suppliers, in order to compete with rival firms offering a wider product range in the highly-competitive web-to-print market.

“As a consequence we have felt some pressure on operating margins which we expect to impact performance in the second half of the year,” the firm said.

Its Ravensworth operation, which primarily serves estate agents and the property market, reported “muted” market conditions.

Tangent said the benefit of new product offerings is yet to flow through. “There has been a slower than expected take-up of data, digital marketing and photo products, which we aim to upsell into our customer base alongside the print and design offer,” it said.

The performance of the T/OD business that focuses on advertising agency clients was described as “comparable to the prior year”.

The previously loss-making Agency division, Tangent Snowball, turned around last year’s £30,000 loss to post a profit of £460,000 on flat sales of £3.52m.

The group’s net cash reduced to £1.5m after what it described as a spike in revenues during July, and “a poor cash collection period”. It said debtor days had returned to normal last month and it expected to be cash generative in the second half.

During the period it invested £68,000 on equipment and £13,000 on software.