Our Inkfast online ink and toner business is two years old. It continues to outperform ink and toner sales in our newsagency by a factor of four to one – even allowing for the good growth we have achieved in our newsagency over the last six months.
Inkfast serves a very different demographic to our newsagency – most Inkfast customers would not buy their ink and toner from a newsagency. Being purely online and with all customers paying in advance, the margin model is different to retail. I am certain that branding Inkfast in a way which connected it with a newsagency would have seen it fail. The newsagent shingle has baggage (good and bad) attached.
Today, two years on, Inkfast is still growing – organically, without any marketing spend. We spent heard in our first year to attract customers but that stopped a year ago. Today, it’s natural search results and word of mouth.
Like any business, customer service is key – the value proposition is built into our name.