The Local Print Solutions team (Credit: Your Houston News)
Local Print Solutions has celebrated 10 years in business, and was previously a Rapid Refill franchise.
Your Houston News reported on the store in Kingwood, Texas, which has evolved “from a business just focused on ink and toner cartridges to a full-on printing business offering a variety of services”, such as copying, shredding and IT. The site noted that the 10 years “have been an adventure” for owner Ken Beard, who first opened a Rapid Refill franchise “just a few doors away from where he is currently located” 10 years ago.
Beard noted that he had “worked for a previous company for 20 years when I became unemployed”, and “after searching for a year, I knew it was time to branch out into something else and began to look at franchise options when I found Rapid Refill Ink, which met all of my requirements such as environmentally friendly and focused on giving back to the community. We started as a small business focused on refilling ink and toner cartridges at a fair price”.
Customers started asking if they could fax, so the store began offering that service, and then copying was added as well, before three years ago the franchise became Local Print Solutions, with the new name “more indicative of all the services they provide”. Beard also decided to offer “discounted prices” to both non-profit organisations and student groups “as a way to give back to the community”, and “were able to substantially save these particular groups more money than we could” before.
As a result, the store has been able to provide the organisations with cheque donations, and Beard added that “our discounts to non-profit organisations last year” added up to “well over” $100,000 (€88,960), noting: We work to save all of our various non-profits and organisations as well as our customers money. We are very customer-based, in that, if we don’t known an answer to our customer’s question, we will find out the answer”.
The store also added space in the store for Buzzingo, a computer repair company whose owner “inquired about leasing space”, and a result Beard noted that “anything that has to do with printing or computers, we can do it. If we didn’t expand our services beyond refilling and recycling the toner and ink cartridges, we would not have survived.
“We still offer a recycling programme for cartridges and focus on giving our customers more than what they ask for, and give our customers special treat bags; it is our belief you should get more than what you expect”. The store also adopted another non-profit, Humble Area Assistance Ministries, to “provide printing services and supplies”, and will celebrate its anniversary on 12 September with “a few deals for customers as well as 10 percent off” in another promotion.