Andy Buchholz has been in the printing industry since 1989. He recently has been building his business, Eastern Shore Signs in Cape Charles, Virginia, mainly with a large number of jobs for routing and vinyl cutting. To diversify his product lines, he bought an AnaJet mPower mP5 garment printer.

According to Andy, almost overnight, the AnaJet printer enabled a 35% increase in business. With around 3,500 garments printed since March 2012, Andy realized $21,000 in total business sales in the month of June with orders distributed about 50% signs and 50% garment and other fabric printing on the mPower. In fact Andy signed on to a webinar recently and let me know that he had crossed the 4,300 mark and was still printing like mad.

Eastern Shore Signs is essentially a one-man operation in a small town of about 1,200 people. To an outsider, this might make his explosive success pretty remarkable.

Andy says that he gets a lot of business from retail stores in nearby Virginia Beach, businesses that cater to tourists, restaurants, and lately a coffee company. He also discovered a significant volume of business after joining the Chamber of Commerce – beginning with a $1,200 job immediately upon joining.

So the secret is not so secret – he’s marketing a low-cost product through viral means — word-of-mouth and Facebook — to industries that thrive on short runs, on-demand fulfillment and personalization.

As a veteran large format and inkjet printer operator, Andy is amazed with the mPower digital apparel printer’s performance, reliability and ease of use, especially how simple it was for him to get into full production right away. He’s also a fan of AnaRIP, the proprietary software that comes with every mPower.

With his strong background in printing, and having used the very first RIP programs in large format, Andy say that AnaRIP is, “Simple, yet powerful.” Exactly what we have been striving for. Many thanks to Andy, and check back for the full story on our blog next week!