Print.IT Reseller - issue 88

01732 759725 DISTRIBUTION 34 Go2 Distribution has continued to expand its value-added offering, Michelle Ryder caught up with Sales Director Damian Kelly, to find out more Adding value get back to business as usual, we will retain our focus on adding value through alternative products.” Go2’s planitgreen remanufactured toner range for brands including Canon, Kyocera, Ricoh, Brother, Epson and HP and the complementary Eco compatible range of toners, have been hugely successful for the firm. More recently it has become a stockist for Nashua genuine toners. “Eco and planitgreen suppliers are for printers and up until now we didn’t have a copier range. With this deal, we can now provide Ricoh copier dealers with an alternative product that delivers the same quality and reliability as the OEM-equivalent,” Kelly said. EcoToner software The company is also working with Dyalog the managed print services business of Armor Print Solutions to offer EcoToner software which can extend the life of consumables by up to 60 per cent with no compromise on the print quality of documents. EcoToner is fully integrated within Monitor, NDD Print’s DCA and fleet supervision software dedicated to office automation resellers which is distributed across Europe by Dyalog. The new EcoToner functionality can be activated within the Monitor software features of the Dyalog offer. It can be wholly managed by the reseller, it simply sits in the background and enables them to reduce the amount of toner consumption on a per customer, per device basis. It’s been a little over two years since DMC Distribution, the specialist printer and supplies distributor to resellers in the UK, announced its rebranding to Go2 Distribution. At the time Kelly said its goal was to become the ‘go-to’ trade-only specialist for copier and printer supplies, and to offer its resellers a trusted and reliable distribution partner and an enhanced customer experience. “From day one we set out to build a business that offers dealers a choice to buy from a distributor that delivers choice and which adds value,” Kelly said. Speaking about the climate over the past 18 months or so, Kelly admits there have been challenges but is confident that business is now coming back to normal levels. “We kept the doors open throughout the lockdowns, and we focused on broadening our product offering to ensure we delivered what our customers needed.” Expanded offering For Go2, new categories included PPE – an offering that was well received by the channel who needed it to continue running their own organisations. It has also added HP shredders to its offering and has plans in place to add more janitorial and hygiene products to its line-up. He continued: “Expanding our offering is central to our aim to add value, we don’t see ourselves as a broad line stocklist and as we start to “EcoToner is a really strong proposition, it’s vendor-agnostic and compatible with all makes and models of printers and, it works across all types of documents,” Kelly explained, adding: “For dealers providing cost per page contracts, it’s an innovative new way to improve their profitability, they can easily and remotely adjust the toner usage of printers in their fleet, optimising their costs by making significant savings on toner consumption with no negative impact on the end-users’ experience. For resellers selling toner on a transactional basis, it’s an opportunity to work with their customers and help them reduce their costs.” Customer-centric supplier Although Go2 has only been around for a couple of years, it’s just the name that’s new. “We have been trading for over 30 years and the Go2 team are the same people our customers dealt with at DMC. We have always been and will always be a customer-centric supplier,” Kelly said. “Our style is to pick up the phone and talk to our customers, we’re a small team, and a customer can talk to anyone of us at any time. If you leave us a message, we’ll call you back and I think that’s really important.” Go2 has forged a number of strong supplier relationships over the years and this has stood it in good stead in terms of minimising the impact of shortages in the supply chain. “We work closely with a lot of European suppliers and others further afield. If we can’t source a product from the UK, we can leverage those connections to try further afield. I can’t promise to get everything, but I can promise we will try,” he said. Customer service is the one thing that really sets Go2 apart, according to Kelly: “Lots of businesses have used the pandemic as an excuse to start offering lower levels of customer service. In contrast we’ve re-energised our focus here. We have all experienced trying times, and we are here to help support our customers, now more than ever,” he concluded. www.go2distribution.co.uk