Gogoprint ready to disrupt SEA’s printing industry: Page 2 of 2

Sustainability and scalability

This focus on constant improvement seems to be one of the key tenets of Gogoprint. De Candido hints at new features and services coming to Gogoprint Malaysia soon, including design templates on the website by the end of April.

Though going this ‘extra mile’, as De Candido puts it, is what differentiates Gogoprint in the market, the business model being what it is and the startup relying on third parties for printing and delivery services means that it has to keep a close eye on quality.

“One of the reasons some of the printers in Malaysia are failing is they are not quality careful. Quality is essential in the sense that if the customer is happy with the quality they will buy again. This is essential in an industry where there is a lot of repeat business,” says De Candido, adding that this is the main reason Gogoprint is customer-centric.

Logistics, meanwhile, is a routine challenge for everyone, but Malaysia’s relative maturity on this front is one reason Gogoprint chose to expand to Malaysia. De Candido points out that the booming e-commerce market in Malaysia has pushed logistics companies to become more organised and structured in the last few years. “Thanks to this, we are able to keep our promises to our customers in terms of delivery,” he says.

The attention to quality and customers takes a lot of time and effort, but De Candido makes clear that this is the right way to go for Gogoprint. He cites Brazilian-based online printing company Printi, which Online Printing Group has also invested in, as a good benchmark. In operation for about five years, Printi is a leader in the Brazilian market and now has about 200 staff.

“Obviously, they are where they are today because they made a lot of good decisions. We are trying to make the same good decisions. Whatever we do, we make it scalable. We don’t just do a quick fix,” says De Candido.

De Candido reveals that growth in terms of customer reach is good – the website had about 20,000 visits in February – but stops short of saying what that translates to in terms of orders.

“Profitability is not a goal of an e-commerce company within the first six months. If we were profitable now, it means we’re not growing fast enough,” he says, adding that the startup is concentrating on balancing growth and spend, and building a stable base.

Stability is essential – Gogoprint Malaysia ensured it had stable products and prices when it launched, and is still making sure products are up to par and prices are competitive. “The biggest risk is to go too fast and disappoint customers, which we absolutely want to avoid. We want happy customers who come back to us and refer us to their friends,” says De Candido.

Gogoprint Malaysia sees its biggest competition as itself – De Candido says there is no real competitor in the Malaysian market as yet. The startup is instead kept on its toes by the constant need to deliver new products and services, find new ways to identify customer needs and answer them quickly, and be quick to arrive on the market.

“We need to constantly reimagine ourselves. This is our biggest challenge.”

Related stories:

Printcious revives the art of gift giving through technology

Printerous raises US$1.4mil in pre-series A funding

For more technology news and the latest updates, follow us on Facebook,Twitter or LinkedIn.