Two months on from taking up the reins at FlyerAlarm’s UK operation, Keith Hanson is setting a stall for trade customers of Germany’s largest online print business.
“In the UK we are a small business,” he says, “which doesn’t have any resonance with the fact we are one of the biggest online print operations able to supply a huge range of products.”
He joined the business from Albumprinter, where he led online sales of photo products for Albelli and Bonusprint brands over a six-year spell and before that had been sales and marketing director of CeWe Color in the UK. Now he crosses into a business to business market and sees opportunities as the use on online purchasing, print included, becomes more widespread.
“We can offer a really wide spread of products at a good price, many available for next day delivery if ordered before 9pm. It is part of the shift to online purchasing that is transforming the travel business, taxi services and so on.
“In Germany, FlyerAlarm has pioneered many of the changes and we feel that the UK is a bit behind the curve.”
The business was launched in 2002 and has become a €330 million turnover company operating from five sites with no press more than three years old. That firepower is turned to handling 22,500 orders each day from business cards and flyers to more complex products. “We produced wooden book covers for one customer,” says Hanson, admitting that this is not an online offering, but something available through a dedicated special products team.
The company used to operate a shop in London’s West End, closed before Hanson joined the company. It has now established a UK office in Paddington housing Hanson, and business development director Divyesh Chotai, previously with Saxoprint. It will also be home to a team of account handlers created to support a network of resellers.
These can sign up to a trade programme says Hanson providing 11% extra discount above other offers that the company is running. For example for the next three months a 10% discount will apply for a single order of up to ten products with no restriction on value.
But Hanson stresses that FlyerAlarm is not planning to kick off a price war. “We have looked at our prices, adjusted them in line with the market, some up, some down, and we believe there is enough market out there for everyone to make a living,” he says.
UK online print volumes are reckoned to be around £200 million from a market spending in excess of £7 billion on print.
Keith Hanson brings experience in online commerce and print to a new job at FlyerAlarm in the UK as the largest German online print business aims at expansion.
