Fast-growing Instant Imprints is giving $10,000 worth of free corporate gift items and other branding services to small business owners who visit its nine Metro Vancouver locations May 21-25.
Five of the company’s stores opened in the past six months and the open houses are meant to celebrate the company’s rapid expansion.
The company has plenty of competition for signs, including Sign-A-Rama, Signs By Tomorrow, Signs Now and Fast Signs. It also has competition for embroidery, custom T-shirts and other promotional items.
But none of its competitors sell all of those products under one roof, company CEO Ralph Askar told Business in Vancouver.
The company first opened in Vancouver in 2009.
It has since added:
three more Vancouver stores;
two Surrey stores; and
locations in Langley, Coquitlam and Abbotsford.
Askar is the former president and CEO of UPS Store Canada and he built that company to 330 stores. He then separately invested to be the Instant Imprints Canadian master licensee before buying the parent company in San Diego.
He believes Vancouver is a good location for new stores partly because the region has a higher percentage of small and medium-sized businesses than many cities.
“Ultimately, we’re going to have 40 stores in B.C.,” he told BIV last year. “About 80% to 85% of who we market to are small businesses.”
