01732 759725 46 Production print DSales is also looking for further growth in the production print market. “Office print volumes are declining but digital production and industrial print, labelling and packaging in particular, are all growing areas,” Kershaw said, adding: “In the first half of 2025, we’ve sold 50% more production machines than we did in the whole of 2024.” DSales has created what Kershaw describes as a pseudo print shop at HQ, a facility housing the new five-colour production press, a guillotine and paper store that partners can bring their commercial print shop clients to try out first-hand. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, DSales is planning a series of business events over the next twelve months with staff, dealer partners and customers. Last month, it held its first-ever Sales Summit (North) at The Halston, Carlisle. The summit was open to all authorised Develop dealers, with a limited number of places also available for non‑Develop resellers who wish to broaden their knowledge and explore new opportunities. A Southern edition will follow soon. www.dsales.co.uk competitive option for many. In terms of machine sales and market share, we’ve shown significant growth in the first half of 2025 compared to 2024,” Kershaw continued. “Growing the solutions side of the business is a key focus for us, alongside dealer recruitment and selling more machines. We have a laser-sharp focus on support. “We work hard at making it as easy as possible for our partners to sell our machines over a competitors. So, we’re doing a lot more on the marketing side and increasing our technical support in particular, so we’re closer to our partners and their needs.” Ensuring partners remain competitive Whitworth added: “Our ability to offer competitive pricing, fast decisionmaking and excellent service is what won us our reseller partners initially. Consistently delivering on our promise over the years has ensured we both retain customers and continue to sign up new accounts. “Internally, we’re trying to be as efficient as possible to make sure that we remain competitive for our dealers and keep their business alive. What’s key is that we are a dealer-only channel, we don’t sell direct and we do everything we can to support our partners in a very competitive market. Part and parcel of that is providing additional value-add services including finance and service, and particularly on the solutions side. Andy Johnson has been with us for 12 months now and he’s doing a fabulous job bringing on new partners and building up a really strong solutions portfolio across security, document management and cloud connectivity.” DSales was founded by Managing Director Jonathan Whitworth who initially worked out of a shed in his back garden. In an earlier interview with PrintIT Reseller, Whitworth said that he did everything from sales to invoicing to deliveries, and he closed over £2 million of business from that shed. In its first year of trading, DSales achieved a six-figure profit. Since then, turnover has risen consistently yearon-year, reaching £13 million in the last fiscal year. The company currently transacts with around 120 dealer partners UK-wide and according to Dealer Sales Manager Archie Whitworth, that number is still growing. “We are seeing lots of interest from partners looking to onboard, mainly because of the way we do business, there is no bureaucracy or red tape here, dealers hear about how well our partners are looked after and they want a piece of the action,” he said. Broad services offering Marketing Manager Glenn Kershaw pointed to the company’s broad services offering including a growing solutions suite, service provision and finance/ leasing, that partners can tap into, as attractive propositions to existing and potential new partners. “Smaller dealers or ones with no machine base and in-house engineers can enter the market, because we’ve got a nationwide servicing solution that they can leverage. We’re attracting MSPs who are interested in print. Typically, their customer base is using somebody else for the MPS side of things. They can now bring all that under one roof, with Develop devices and our servicing,” he explained. Growing market share Twenty years on, Develop is an established brand with a growing market share. “We are an established player in the marketplace. We’re by no means the biggest, but we are a recognised September 2025 marked the beginning of the 20th anniversary year for DSales, the UK distributor for the Develop range of multifunctional document imaging systems DSales (UK) marks 20th anniversary year DISTRIBUTION Glenn Kershaw Archie Whitworth
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