Archies, a manufacturer and seller of greeting cards and other social expression products such as gifts and posters, installed a 5-color Ryobi 925D press plus Aquas coater at its new Manesar plant in January 2016. Started in 1979, Archies used to sell song books, posters and leather patches while its main product, greeting cards, were introduced in 1980. Greeting cards were introduced for major Indian festivals such as Holi, Diwali and Rakhi, apart from the traditional New Year, birthday and anniversary occasions. With its registered office in Naraina in New Delhi, the company went public in 1995 and in 1998, it was listed on the National Stock Exchange of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange. Today the company produces about 1,500,000 cards each month with about 50% of India’s greeting cards market.
“The new press has a print format size of 25 x 36 inches,” says Jagdish Moolchandani, chief operating officer of Archies. “This size is very convenient for us because we print all our products in this format. When we wanted to buy a press with this format size, we could find only Ryobi offering the format size. This is a good press and we have not faced any breakdown till now.” The new press comes with an auto-registration system as well as autoplate and auto-blanket wash. According to Moolchandani, his company has been able to reduce wastage using this press. While the press can run at a speed of 16,200 sheets an hour, Archies runs it at a speed of 12,000 to 13,000 sheets an hour, printing around 40,000 sheets (including greetings cards, gift wrappers, posters, POPs) in an eighthour shift every day.
The new Ryobi runs in close to four other sheetfed offset presses – including a 5-color Heidelberg. The company processes and uses around 80 Technova plates daily. “If we get customers for job work, we may even stretch our working to a 16-hour shift. Although, we do sometimes print for third parties even now, this work is not enough to stretch the shift,” he says.
“I am very optimistic about our online effort and believe that we will be able to convert our online platform to a highly profitable and successful one. My aim is to make it grow double-digit in the next three years,” says Moolchandani
Although greetings cards were the main revenue driver for the company till a few years ago, today these constitute just 20% of the total revenue. Currently 15% of the company’s revenue is generated by selling stationery material while 65% of the revenue comes from gift items including soft toys, albums, photo frames, mugs and sippers, personalized gifts as well as other products.
“We expanded our operations to Manesar in 2000. We used to have four to five buildings at Naraina, each dedicated to specific jobs such as designing, foiling, printing, diecutting and packing. We wanted to get away with the scattered units and become more organized and systematic, and so we started the Manesar plant. At Manesar, we brought all these units under a single roof. This has helped us a lot in terms of becoming more competitive and having more control over time and production,” says Moolchandani.
Built on a 300,000 square-foot area, an area of about 60,000 square feet is dedicated to CtP, printing, diecutting and finishing. The paper stock, warehouse and packaging are in the basement. The Manesar plant’s interiors and workfloor are impressive with the neatly maintained work-floor giving a strong sense of why the Archies brand has dominated its segment for so many decades. “We love cleanliness and we ensure that it reflects not only on our brand, but also on our workplace and employees,” says Moolchandani.
Archies has about 2,000 outlets and franchisees, called Archies Galleries, across 120 cities and six countries. It has tie-ups and licensing arrangements for merchandising such as Dennis the Menace and Disney characters. It has also arrangements with Paramount Cards, Anne Geddes, and American Greetings, for greeting card design and name use.
Following the increasing popularity of eCards, Archies started its online portal in 2000 and expanded its gift product range to artificial jewellery, crystal ware, chocolates, perfumes. “However, our online revenue generation is not very significant at the moment. Nevertheless, I am very optimistic about our online effort and believe that we will be able to convert our online platform to a highly profitable and successful one. My aim is to make it grow double-digit in the next three years,” says Moolchandani.
