Dundee printing firm Tradeprint racked up a second year of heavy losses as it counted the cost of technology upgrades.
Tradeprint operates from two sites in Dundee and supplies a wide variety of products including magnetic displays, exhibition stands, labels, laminated flyers and business cards.
The firm was bought for more than £20 million by Dutch firm Cimpress in 2015 and merged with sister company Exaprint in July 2017.
In the first set of accounts since the merger, Tradeprint Distribution Limited showed income of £13.9 million, of which £930,000 was sales by Exaprint, for the year ending June 30.
This compares to Tradeprint’s turnover of £12m in the year to June 30 2017, before the companies merged.
Pre-tax losses were £2.4m last year compared to a £2.5m deficit in 2017.
Charlene Douglas, who was promoted from finance director to managing director in November, said work on the new software platform had been completed which should reap benefits in the current financial year.
In her strategic report, she wrote: “During this period, we accelerated out marketing efforts internally, which drove the acquisition of a large number of new resellers, who have remained loyal to the business based on repeat rates during the year.
“Towards the end of the fiscal year 2018, we successfully completed the migration to a new, cutting-edge e-commerce technology platform.
“The new platform is fully integrated into the mass customization platform and state of the art data warehousing solution developed by our parent company, Cimpress.
“This will enable us to improve our customer value proposition by improving the website experience and our analytics capabilities.
“It will also allow us to more quickly and easily launch new products, which we expect will provide a more attractive and diversified offering for our customers.
“Because this was completed at the very end of this fiscal year, the expected revenue and profit benefits will not be recognized until the year ending June 30 2019.”
The firm employs around 150 staff in Dundee, split between its sites in Fulton Road and Luna Place. It also has offices in London and Mumbai, which employ around 15 staff.
Ms Douglas said she believed the firm would be able to adapt quickly to any implications of Brexit “irrespective of how it unfolds.”
rmclaren@thecourier.co.uk