|
Photographer Dirk Engelhardt of Nelson has been able to recognize how his business can take advantage of the trend of customizing and personalizing products first reported by futurist Faith Popcorn.
Using his technical skills in photo finishing as well as his computer design skills, Engelhardt Enterprises designs and prints affordable small run, customized, colour business cards, postcards, and personal cards.
"I was a photographer for seven years here but it was the lab work, the technical part that I wanted to do more than anything else," he said during our interview. He likes to experiment and try new things so computers were a natural. From there he mixed his photography and computer and voila, his "I could work at home and start selling my work on the net as well as locally," he continued.
Two things make him unique: unlike commercial printing businesses, Engelhardt produces affordable, small run, full colour cards, customized for his client; and he sells his work internationally using the Internet to marketing his business.
He charges $40 plus shipping for one hundred full colour business cards on standard photo stock. As the volume increases, his prices go down to $25 per hundred. "I can create the business card for them or I can work with their own graphics and pictures, which I receive via snail mail or in electronic form via e-mail attachment," he said.
Engelhardt also knows that people are skeptic of ordering things over the Internet, especially if they had to send a cheque. To establish trust he'd send an electronic email proof or post a proof on his website for viewing and snail mail one copy of their card. If they liked it, they sent the cheque and the rest of the cards were mailed out.
It's the advances in technology and his customers needs for personalized and customized products that has allowed Engelhardt to compete in the small run, customized market. In the last two years, because of technology, his costs have decreased and the use of technology has dramatically increased.
How do people find him? "If you type in "colour business cards" on most of the major search engines, my website, www.netidea.com/engel is usually in the top ten selections," he said. He also reads and posts messages to some of the Internet sales discussion groups. So far his customers have come from places as far away as New Jersey, Dallas, San Diego and Nelson.
Nelson? "Yes, I was reading the order form and the customer had attached the electronic file she wanted. Then I saw the word Nelson so I looked again. It was Paula Snow of Wharfhouse Business Services. She lives in Nelson and she ordered her cards from me over the Internet!" he exclaimed.
The only difference in conducting business over the Internet so close to home versus continent wide was that Engelhardt was able to drop off the completed card instead of mailing it and pick up a cheque rather than wait for the cheque to arrive in the mail.
Small run, personalized and customized products. Using technology to reach an untapped marketplace across town as easily as across a continent. Nelson's Engelhardt Enterprises is a good example of successful businesses in the new economy. And it's happening here, right in the Kootenays.
Other articles in the "New Economy" series by Marilyn Strong:
Marilyn has spent most of her life marketing products and services for herself and others. Today she writes about the new economy as it is unfolding in the Kootenay region of BC, she earns her living by coaching and training entrepreneurs both in the Kootenays and around the world to understand how a digital economy will change the market of every product and service available. Click here to learn more about Marilyn Strong.
copyright (c) Marilyn Strong 1997, 1998.
|
