Youthful owner invigorates downtown print shop

Customer service has been the primary key to the success of Traders Printing’s 80 years, but this year, because of new equipment and additional manpower, the company is growing faster than ever.

Owner Andy Cobb, 26, grew up watching his dad, Stanford, run all four printing presses. Originally located on South Pershing, the company was established in 1925 and acquired by the Cobb family in the early 1960s. The current location, a 3,000-square-foot brick building on McDaniel Street, was purchased from Paul Fredrick in 1975 for $22,500.

“I’ve been a part of this shop for a long time,” said Andy Cobb. “It’s pretty much what I’ve done my whole life. My dad had been a printer his whole life, too, since he was 17.”

Stanford Cobb, who learned about the printing business working at Elkins-Swyers Co. as a teenager, has retired at the age of 69 and was unavailable for comment.

Andy Cobb has been working at the shop full-time since 1996 and officially took over the family business in January.

Client relationships

Traders Printing is still set up the way it has been for decades. In the back, there’s a large room full of noisy printing equipment, partitioned off by a 4-foot wall. Cobb’s desk is in the front of the shop, where, when he’s not operating one of the machines, he can meet customers as they walk in the door.

“Business is a relationship,” Cobb said. “If you’re friends with people, there are (competitors) that can probably beat (your) prices, but they’ll still come to you because they know you’re going to get it right the first time.”

Traders Printing provides a variety of printing services – including full-color digital, high-speed black-and-white, and self-service black-and-white – as well as finishing services such as die cutting, numbering, scoring, folding, perforating, bindery and typesetting. T-shirt printing also will be offered in the near future, Cobb said.

Many of Traders Printing’s clients, including Great Southern Bank and Kraft, have been with the company for almost 40 years, Cobb said.

Regina Amlin, the purchasing manager for Great Southern Bank, said she orders a variety of forms, envelopes and napkins in quantities of 10,000 or more 10 or 15 times per week.

“I get a lot of printing companies that want me to do business with them,” Amlin said. “Price is part of it, and the quality is the other. If I can get the price and the quality that’s best, that’s where I go most of the time. And Traders has consistently given us the best price and the good quality. Occasionally, we get someone else that comes in with a lower price, but can’t supply the quality.”

Growth via acquisition

When Corner Printing at South Campbell and East Walnut closed in September, Cobb bought the company’s assets, including two newer presses and all the customer accounts, for $15,000.

Last year, Traders Printing earned $125,000 in revenues, but Cobb hopes the new business from Corner Printing will help to continue a pace set in October 2004. Since then, Traders Printing’s business has increased 218 percent, Cobb said.

With the influx of new customers brought on by the deal and a workload more than twice as large, Cobb is no longer able to run the shop alone. He hired Steven Page in August to assist him in bindery. He also hired both of Corner Printing’s press operators, Harry Goldstein and Greg Little.

World of color

With the new equipment, Traders Printing can now do full-color printing for the first time, Cobb said.

This allows the company to go after new clients, printing promotional items for art galleries and newsletters for churches.

Shannon Merced, the owner of Shae Belle, a fashion boutique on South Campbell, said she usually prints her business materials from her computer but wanted something extra special to celebrate her shop’s one-year anniversary.

She sent out 500 full-color, two-sided glossy cards to all of her customers, at a cost of about $300.

“I told him what I wanted, and he designed (it),” Merced said. “It was really cute. I was really happy with it.”

Cobb said Traders Printing might outgrow its space in the future, but it will always stay in the downtown area.

“I’d really hate to move unless we absolutely have to,” Cobb said. “We don’t want to get too big.”