Noida based Retail Junction is a large digital printing house that also has four advanced screen printing machines with complete pre-press and post-press facilities. Established in 2013, Retail Junction has a 30000 sq ft facility that houses six digital printers (max 10ft) – solvent, eco-solvent and UV. The company has a dedicated team of over 85 professionals. They cater to many sectors Pan India, like the Agriculture, FMCG and the Telecom sectors, to whom they supply signage, POP, POS and other products for their marketing campaigns. The company has diversified into display and digital signage, block out signage, ACP signage, LED signage and thermophobic signage.
Interview, Vineet Mehta, Director of Retail Junction.
Being a large digital print service provider, why did you invest in advanced screen printing technology?
We are one of the rare companies specialized in screen and thermoforming and wide format digital printing. The screen advanced screen printing technology enables the production of cost-effective printing at virtually 600 DPI quality, on almost all kinds of rigid/flexible substrates. The use of the latest technology produces complex designs in 4 color process (CMYK) printing to the highest quality finish on a vast range of materials for both small and large quantities on automized machines up to 48″x 96″.
We want to give the clients the flexibility of going with any set of technology, be it digital or screen printing as per their requirements. The requirements may be different for different types of jobs or different clients for example for large volume standardized jobs, screen printing comes in handy but for customizations, for jobs that require exact colour matching like in the case of corporate colours we go for digital printing. Many jobs also require a mix of both the technologies so for many POS materials we have to run the job under both technologies to give them a perfect look. This surely keeps our clients happy and satisfied.
On the other hand, large format digital and solvent prints are the ideal way of producing small quantities of high-quality large format images for display graphics, POPs, signage, translites, banners, backdrops and a host of varying indoor and outdoor media.
How does Retain Junction retain clientele and their loyalty?
In today’s market scenario, when clients are continuously lured by way of discounts and lower pricing, we always will have an edge of our experience of 26 years backed by our ability to provide our clients with innovative solutions and turnaround time. Our solutions always have the wow as well as the practical quotient. And, in our industry, we must respect timelines as the campaigns are always very time-sensitive and we do all this and more for our clients. We always strive to go that extra mile for our clients and hence keep them happy, satisfied and LOYAL!
How did you sail through the Covid19 storm?
The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it challenges that we had never encountered before. The corporates were closed for quite a while and then the advertising and retail branding sector were the hardest hit. Our main priority was that we can sustain our entire team of around 80 people even with the declining business. We did not have access to our international suppliers for inks and other materials or were facing late deliveries but we survived as we found out and we’re acceptable to many locally made products and with the access to various technologies we were able to pull through the challenges.
Many of our clients are from the agricultural sector which came to life slowly in a couple of months and also we recognized and reacted to the changing product requirements and expanded into new product forms like customized plexi-sheets, face Shields, masks made out of acrylic…etc.
We did not have any orders for months but we didn’t want salary cuts for our team as taking care of them became our priority. Instead of closing down or shrinking our unit, we did customized Covid shields for many of our clients which required these products in huge qualities across Indian borders and we diversified into other sectors but kept ourselves running by the grace of God.
What is your take on the eco-friendly printable fabric and flex?
We sure want to work towards doing more environment-friendly things. Earlier we use to use 100% flex media but now we are moving towards fabric be it be on the solvent platform or using other technologies for printing. But this change of material has not yet evolved fully do us as we do face restraints in the supply of fabric for the printing industry as till now we need to import most of the printing fabric from China, although a few Indian suppliers are coming up for the fabric supply, their product is still not up to the mark. But surely, we want to promote the Indian suppliers and also the green media for printing and hence in near future, as we have more access to fabric, we plan to move towards the fabric like 100% media for our printing unit.
You are nearing just a decade of existence. So, what is the reason behind your success?
Although Retail Junction was founded in 2013, we have over 26 years of experience in the advertising industry, having worked in different advertising agencies – both on the client and vendor sides. The reasons behind our success are many. They start with my years of experience in the retail branding sector, the zeal and skills my team possesses, the adaptability that we have with the market changes, our clients who believe in us. However, the most underlying factor is the fact that we are always ready to take on the many challenges that the clients provide us with and strive to give them the best always.