Executive Q&A

4Over is the largest trade-only printer in the United States with 10 locations and close to one million square feet of production space and 1,100 employees. The company offers offset, digital and wide-format printing, covering a wide range of customer applications. In this discussion, CEO Shaheen Javadizadeh, who joined the company in 2020 from the enterprise software industry, shares company updates and industry insights.

Printing News: Thanks for speaking with us today. As the largest trade-only U.S. printer, what does your sales channel look like?

Shaheen Javadizadeh: We have a growing network of value-added resellers, in fact just over 55,000 at the moment. This includes printers, print brokers, marketing firms, graphic design artists, photographers, sign shops and a myriad of others that sell marketing essentials to their customers.

PN: You offer offset and digital commercial printing, as well as wide format. How long have you been offering wide format?

SJ: We have been doing wide format for about seven years now, and we’ve really doubled down in our investment there. We have a lot of technology, equipment and floor space dedicated to wide format, from rigid signs to printed banners and soft signage.

PN: One of the issues that the printing industry has, as well as other industries, is hiring talent. How has the labor shortage affected 4Over?

SJ: There are definitely some headwinds in our industry, both in print and in other types of light manufacturing. The first one, as you note, is people. People are your greatest asset. It’s been challenging during the pandemic to make the right key hires within each of the plants, and it has been different from region to region. However, it’s something that we have just had to get better at. We’ve got one of the best HR teams and some of the best plant managers. Although we had probably four or five months of a rough go at growing our labor pool, we’ve really got that under control now. It ultimately means you have to increase benefits and increase pay, but those are the types of things we are happy to do to get the right team together.

Another is obviously inflation, not only in the cost of labor, but in raw materials. A lot of our industry relies on raw materials from overseas, and when shipping was backed up and sea freight became two to three times more expensive, these increased costs have been quite a challenge. We’ve been fortunate enough to be fairly well diversified. We have U.S. mills we buy from, but we also have some overseas mills we buy from. The shift to sourcing materials locally is becoming a bigger trend, but that’s put a lot of pressure on the mills and suppliers. It really comes down to logistics and transportation. It’s much more expensive. The cost of carriers like FedEx and UPS has gone up, simply because their labor and fuel prices have increased. And that directly impacts the logistics businesses.

PN: I’m assuming you have a lot of automation in your plants to help offset some of the labor issues, as well as a clean and welcoming kind of work environment.

SJ: Of course. It’s amazing to me that a lot of our competitors still don’t offer some of the things that are table stakes – proper heating, proper cooling for the summer, nice break rooms, that kind of thing. We also have an intense focus on safety in each of the 4Over plants, and we try to communicate with all of our employees frequently, announcing promotions and celebrating their successes

PN: With respect to wide format, what percentage of your work is rigid versus soft signage?

SJ: Our wide-format business is about 20% of the overall business. And out of that, it’s about a 50/50 split between rigid-type signs and then fabric or banner material. I see the demand for both of those continuing to outpace the growth of traditional essential marketing products like postcards, flyers, direct mail and sell sheets.

PN: You have obviously gained experience with printing on fabrics. Do you see 4Over getting into textiles, for things like home décor or direct-to-garment printing?

SJ: That’s probably not in our plans. The common thread across our customer base is that they are serving customers who are in need of some type of marketing tool to promote their businesses. So we really thrive in the short-run, quick-turn communications and signage.

PN: As you know, we recently produced our Annual Franchise Review report for print and sign franchises. One of the things I noticed on the print franchise side is that a lot of them don’t have offset anymore. That likely also applies to other smaller commercial printers as well. Are you seeing that as a trend, where you are able to produce offset printing for them when they need it?

SJ: Yes. We have a massive offset footprint, and some of the smaller producers struggle with offset because they simply don’t have enough jobs to fill the sheet or fill a plate. So offset for them, if they don’t have volume, suffers from late delivery or is not produced in time for the customer need. 4Over has 20,000 jobs coming in every single day. While we are talking here, we will have at least a thousand jobs come in. That means we can efficiently batch offset jobs and get them out the same day. To achieve this kind of service level, a lot of our competitors use digital printing because it is faster and easier for them. But it doesn’t have the same economy of scale as offset. Of course, we also have a big digital print footprint, but we use it for a different purpose, generally very short-run and variable print.

PN: What is the job submission process for your customers?

SJ: All our orders are entered online through our e-commerce sites or through an API into our systems. Our systems then look where the ship-to zip code is and determine what the product is – including what substrate is requested and when it needs to be delivered to the customer. Then we automatically route and batch those jobs through our proprietary algorithms. Customers can choose same day, next day or four- to eight-day turnaround. Because of our plant locations, we are within two-day ground shipping range for 95% of the population and more than 50% within one day ground shipping range.

PN: So I assume that now that we are learning to live with COVID and getting back to in-person events, are you seeing that part of the business growing?

SJ: Absolutely. There are now three different tailwinds that we are seeing lift our business, and we are assuming it is lifting the market in general. You hit on the first one, which is in-person events. Trade shows are becoming more frequent, and they are gaining higher attendance, although they are not at pre-pandemic levels. For next year, the trade show circuit is already booked to 2019 levels, so we are expecting next year to be a very big trade show year. We are also seeing Broadway open, and all of the sporting events are back. Even though the pandemic isn’t over, people are acting like it is.

The second tailwind is travel. Tourism is up; people have been cooped up for quite a while and now they want to get out, so that drives a lot of foot traffic to retail stores, hotels, restaurants and other businesses. That is creating strong demand for our products.

As far as the third one, I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t tell you when we are going to get there but at some point, we will enter a recession. So high inflation combined with a recession – you would think that may not be a good thing for the printing industry. But it is quite the contrary, at least for short-run providers like 4Over and our customers. During a recession, small- to mid-sized businesses need to increase the frequency of their marketing campaigns. And that demands more short-run products. Where traditionally they might run a promotion or marketing event for a month, during a recession we typically see more weekend sales, with prices generally the driver to drum up business.

PN: So in closing, do you have any particular advice or future vision that you'd like to share?

SJ: In general, we're extremely optimistic about the future of our business at 4Over, but also for the market in general. The way I see it, the market is a mix of what I would call do-it-yourselfers and do-it-for-mes. The former will go to online services; the latter go to value-added resellers and look for design services and all types of marketing services that include print. I see both of them continuing to be very healthy channels.

We still have steady growth in marketing essentials, albeit a modest growth rate. The big growth markets are signage, labels and packaging. I think that’s where everyone needs to focus. For us, wide format is growing 15% year over year. I’ve seen studies that show that large, attractive signs in front of stores, restaurants and service-related businesses drive 48% more foot traffic. That’s a big number, and it’s a low-cost marketing technique.

With regard to packaging and labels, the first thing manufacturers do before they raise prices is reduce the quantity of product in the package. So what used to be a one-pound bag of coffee is now 10 or 12 ounces. That means more packaging is required to contain the same amount of product. That’s one reason labels and packaging growth even outpaces wide format.

PN: Also, especially for smaller businesses, they want the shorter runs of labels and packaging so they don’t have to deal with excessive inventory or inventory obsolescence.

SJ: Right. No one wants to have to store all that stuff – packaging, marketing material, etc. It’s a lot easier to order it on demand, especially when you can get it same day or next day.

PN: It sounds like you have a positive outlook and some good things going on at 4Over. We are looking forward to staying in touch as you have more news to share.