Group approach pays for Snap franchisees

Caxton Co-operative was developed by five like-minded WA Snap Printing franchise holders as a way of growing their individual businesses by collectively investing in equipment to expand of their services.

Instead of each business owner individually buying their own printing press, potentially costing them almost $1 million each, the franchise owners formed a co-operative to share the costs – and the profits – equally.

Chairman Graham Leeks said the group identified that the way forward for their individual franchise businesses was to expand their services to incorporate larger four-colour high quality printing projects.

“We all had identified that we needed to move ourselves into a slightly different market to where we were,” Mr Leeks said.

“This involved us accessing much more expensive production machinery, which individually we couldn’t afford.”

The group decided to adopt the co-operative model on the advice of their accountants, with the model well-suited to what they were trying to achieve.

“In doing it in the cooperative sense, we were able to spend the money and have a stand alone premises. We all run it on a shift basis, and we can make it pay for us,” Mr Leeks said.

So successful has the concept been that it is now being adopted by other franchise owners within the Snap group Australia wide, as well as Snap Printing franchises in Ireland.

Mr Leeks said all Caxton members shared the profits and costs according to each member’s contribution.

“Any rebates or profits that are paid out are based on the volume of work that you put into the place, and all the costs are shared in a similar way,” he said.

The group also receives support from the Snap group, which is driving the creation of printing ‘hubs’, such as this one.

“[Snap] see that by having a centralised production area we can be more efficient, we can market at a better level and grow our sales. So they are very supportive and are doing what they can to make sure we are successful,” Mr Leeks said.