Simon Davis is first exec and aims to offer wide range of greeting card finishes
There’s big changes afoot at Abbotprint as the Rye-based greeting card specialist printer has appointed Simon Davis as its first sales executive to offer its services to the whole industry.
Having invested just a few months ago in a £250,000 AccurioShine 3600 iFoil machine so big it needed its own specially-built room, owners Brian and Lisa Frost have now decided to expand further.
“When we bought the new iFoil press we thought it was going to be good,” Brian told PG Buzz, “but we completely underestimated the interest and attention it’s received and it made me rethink what we’re doing.
“My plan is to release Simon into the wild armed with all the new finishes we offer and really build this area of the business – up to now small publishers wanting to foil their cards were left either holding large amounts of stock or using digital foil machines which are very limited in their use and quality.
“We did go this route a few years ago and it wasn’t great, now we can actually offer these publishers a really good quality product, and even some effects that you couldn’t do before.”
Well-known in the greetings industry where he’s worked since 2016, Simon started at Abbotprint on Monday, 20 May, and Brian added: “He will really help us to develop this side of the business, it’s also going to take me away from some of the sales and marketing work and allow me to focus more on our product.”
Abbotprint has been producing greeting cards since 1998 with the focus on adding value to clients’ designs and pushing the limits of what’s possible while staying in the background, as one of the first printers to offer two and three-colour glitter in the early 2000s.
And the recent installation of the six-metre-long iFoil allowed Brian and the team to offer foil, spot UV varnish and a foiled embossed finish without the need for any dies or expensive make-ready processes – it can print 20 cards or thousands, at a rate of 6,000 per hour meaning, if a range takes off, more product can be printed, unlike standard digital foil which is not suitable for large runs.
He explained: “Once we began to play with it I realised it had the potential to open up a new market for us and also to give small publishers a way to add some fantastic finishes to their cards without big upfront costs.
“My big mistake with the glitter was to offer it as a service to the trade and other greeting card printers rather than getting out and selling it direct so, when Simon got in touch, it seemed the perfect fit.”
To find out more about Abbotprint’s services and chat to Brian and Simon, the company is on stand 429 at PG Live, among more than 220 exhibitors, on Tuesday and Wednesday, 4-5 June, at London’s Business Design Centre. To register to attend click here.
