CFH Docmail, the Bristol-based company that rescued the Glasgow direct marketing firm BSS Scotland from receivership, has declared Scotland to be a “key market” as it rides a wave of high growth in the “print-and-mail” and “hybrid mail” markets.
Dave Broadway, managing director of the £46 million-turnover company, said that as well as its core print-and-mail service, it was expecting to expand its Velopost bicycle post service, introduced in Edinburgh a year ago, in addition to Bristol and Bath.
Velopost is the fossil fuel-free alternative mail system in which letters, “stamped” for 30p (as opposed to the franked 39p or second-class 54p) are delivered within two days. Customers include housing associations, charities, doctors’ surgeries and restaurants. It conducts one-off deliveries for businesses and organisations sending large annual/biannual/quarterly mailings which provides a large one-off saving on cost compared to traditional services.
The Edinburgh site currently has seven cyclists and delivers on average between 10,000-12,000 items per month although this figure is growing month on month.
CFH established a Scottish presence in 2011 when it bought the Livingston-based FST Technologies out of receivership. Broadway said he responded to a similar approach by BSS because Scotland “is a key market for us and it’s nice to be able to print and deliver locally”.
He said: “Our core business is print-and-mail, in which customers such as councils and banks outsource print and post functions. There is also docmail, a hybrid online mail product in which you can send a letter from a PC, bringing print and mail functions together for large and small business clients.
CFH Docmail turned over £42 million for the year ending March 2015 – a figure expected to grow to £46m this year.
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