This article is case-oriented, and tells the story of the vicious introversion of the peers due to the market environment, until they ran out of ammunition and food, and finally shook hands and made peace. It provides a reference for graphic fast printing shops to reduce vicious competition among peers and improve the quality of life.
The status quo of graphic printing
On the morning of April 1, 2023, a message was sent from the peer group early in the morning: the performance in March increased, and some even broke the historical record for the same period. I calmly replied: It is a happy thing to increase performance. We all want to make up for the loss after three years of the epidemic. However, is the growth in March a short-term phenomenon brought about by the release of the backlog of demand from the epidemic? Or is it a long-term manifestation of the slow economic recovery? This still needs to be observed. Judging from the external environment that affects the performance of fast printing shops, the results are not optimistic, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 External environment affecting the business of express printing shops
6 bad things, 2 good things, we have to rethink the future of the fast printing shop. In order to keep the store alive, we have made a decision to upgrade the "chain fast printing store" to the "chain advertising store" based on external factors and internal resources.
Easier said than done. The fast printing shop and the advertising shop seem to have the same customers, but there are essential differences from the perspective of customers and employees, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2 The core differences between fast printing shops and advertisements
In order to cooperate with the upgrade of the store, we have thought of many ways. For example: recruit more than a dozen graphic design professionals to improve the design level; organize multiple marketing training sessions to improve the customer value chain from the perspective of helping customers with marketing.
This not only improves the quality of employees to a certain extent, but also improves customer satisfaction. But store upgrades cannot be completed overnight. The epidemic will come as soon as it is said, and customer consumption habits will change as soon as it is said. Can the existing stores wait until the spring of the industry? How can we prevent the stores from falling into the darkness before dawn? ? This is a priority.
On the one hand, we invest limited resources in open source, and on the other hand, we try our best to find various possibilities to reduce expenditure.
The problems we encounter will also be encountered by our peers. When everyone encounters the same problem, there is the possibility of cooperation. In the face of survival, you can draw your swords and face each other, or you can hold together to keep warm. Finally, we waited for an opportunity. To clarify this opportunity, we need to start from the beginning.
Case History
In March 2018, Zeng Qingyuan, who worked as a maintenance engineer in a well-known elevator company, met his cousin Ou Wenhao at a party, and learned that he became the manager of a graphic printing company at the age of 19, and started his business . In Ou Wenhao's description, opening a store and starting a business was the most correct decision he had ever made. At this time, Zeng Qingyuan couldn't sit still.
In April 2018, after handing over the job at hand, Zeng Qingyuan left the well-known company and joined Fulitu Express Printing with a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan during the probationary period to learn industry knowledge and be ready to start a business at any time.
In October 2018, through the entrepreneurial road show, Zeng Qingyuan received 400,000 yuan of entrepreneurial start-up capital and started his entrepreneurial journey. Zeng Qingyuan's store is located in a small new park, where there is already a husband-and-wife store in operation. In the field of fast printing, mom-and-pop stores account for about 80% of the number.
