Eight months ago we launched an online ink and toner supply business, Inkfast, to see what we could achieve with a purely online business compared to selling the same products in our newsagency. Inkfast was advertised primarily on Google with some recent work with Yahoo. We’re at over $40,000 a month in ink and toner with most customers of the sort we would never see in a newsagency. The cost of customer acquisition has been falling steadily since month three to the point where we decided to rest the Google campaign and see what happens. Such a pause is timely going into Easter. It will be interesting to see the impact.
A key learning for us from this online business is how smart newsagents can leverage their infrastructure for access to customers their bricks and mortar business cannot access. Inkfast has been grown on a tight budget. Less control on our advertising spend would, I am sure, lead to over $100,000 a month in ink and toner sales. Leveraging these business customers who would not usually shop in a newsagency into other products is the next phase of the development of this business.