Australia’s Office Brands is the latest office supplies dealer group to form an alliance with Vistaprint Corporate Solutions.

Under the terms of the agreement, Vistaprint Corporate Solutions will support Office Brands by providing its dealer network with a custom print-fulfilment solution. This will see the creation of a co-branded portal available via dealers’ websites that will give access to items such as business cards, company stationery, marketing materials and apparel.

Office Brands’ head of marketing and merchandise, Margaret De Francesco, said: “The relationship with Vistaprint Corporate enables our dealers to add value to existing customers as well as generate business through this new channel. We can now supply a range of professionally printed and personalized products from a highly regarded brand with the infrastructure to deliver exceptional service. Dealer adoption in our launch phase has been strong with many dealers having already taken up the opportunity to offer the service on their website.”

Tim Webster, head of business development at Vistaprint Corporate Solutions, added: “There is a huge opportunity for independent dealers to achieve sales in print. There are already a number of dealers generating around 20% of turnover from print; but there are many who aren’t because they don’t have the tools, infrastructure or knowledge at their disposal.”

Vistaprint Corporate has been signing on dealer groups around the world as it transitions out of its former partnership with Staples. In addition to Office Brands, independent dealer groups to partner with Vistaprint include Independent Stationers in the United States, the United Kingdom’s Integra, Office Supplies Denmark and German group Soennecken. Vistaprint is a unit of Netherlands-based Cimpress N.V.

Andy Braithwaite is editor-at-large of Office Products International, where this article first appeared before it was slightly edited to appear in B2BecNews. The original version can be viewed at OPI.net.