In a profit warning to the stock exchange released this morning, Printing.com said that volume growth had dropped sharply from around a 9% growth to a 3% contraction in November and December.

Rafferty told PrintWeek: "If someone last year had shown me the current headlines, I would have thought the fall would have been a lot worse.

"However, the decline has reached a plateau with sales for January roughly similar to those in the last two months of 2008."

The AIM-listed franchise company has been actively supporting the franchisees that are experiencing cash flow problems, with a £125,000 investment in marketing promotions.

"We are not a charity," said Rafferty. "We have a responsibility to our franchisees and our shareholders. Having said that, we are ready to support franchisees who are experiencing short-term cash flow problems."

He added that some of the franchisees were experiencing "collapses" of their core markets, in particular he said that large web design projects were falling off customers' radars.

However, the company's pipeline of potential franchisee owners is at its "strongest ever level" as businesses seek the safe shores of the cash generative franchise, he said.

The company also announced that its anticipated US expansion, enabled by the granting of a master licence to a "well established commercial printer" was now taking shape with sites to be opened in April 2009.

Rafferty remained cautious in his growth forecasts for the international expansion. "I am not interested in blue sky gazing," he said. "Our responsibility is to support the two initial stores and help them grow."