Get Royal Treatment

With Royal Imaging International

Celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year, Royal Imaging offers dealers a wealth of experience and a new look at buying imaging supplies.  Doing business with them, you may discover, is more pleasant than can be expected with the larger wholesale distributors.

“We’ve built Royal Imaging International with the premise that there was ground in our industry for a middle of the road wholesaler; [we’re] not the real big guys and we’re not the small local wholesaler,” said Vice President of Royal Imaging International, Joel Frankel.

Customer service is what sets Royal Imaging International apart from the rest.  They focus on your orders, so you won’t have to.  If you need to speak to a person, not a voice message, Royal Imaging will be glad to take your call.

“When a customer calls in, they’re going to talk to someone at all times.  We are going to give that personal service that has been lacking in our industry.  Everybody who answers the phones in the sales department is fully trained to handle all customer service related issues.  We form a family with all of our dealers,” Frankel explained, “Our motto is building business partnerships for the future; and that’s what we do.”

Aside from great customer service, say you want a distributor that provides everything you need, not just a few items or one type of product. Royal Imaging meets that demand.  They offer a large line of OEM’s, compatibles, compatible fax ribbons, and remanufactured cartridges.  Just take your pick out of their 2500 sku catalogue.

Competitively priced, Royal Imaging has the experience and size to buy from the best at the lowest rates.  They pass along these savings to dealers.

 “Let’s face it toner’s toner, especially if you are dealing with an OEM cartridge. Why should they buy from us?” asked Frankel, “They’re buying from us because we make them feel important, and we’re always competitive.  We buy at the level that the largest distributors buy from, because we know the industry so well.  We buy at the same levels, but we don’t pad costs in the system.  We pass that savings on to the customer.”

Even at the best price, shipping costs can get between dealers and their product.  If you could get second day shipping to anywhere in the U.S. at ground rates, would that change the way you buy?  Royal Imaging offers ground rates for orders two hundred and fifty dollars or more and ground rates, plus five dollars, for orders over a hundred dollars.  West Coast dealers can add to that Royal’s next day program, at ground rates, for shipments in California, Arizona, and Nevada.

“Because of the new freight program, we have something to offer.  Before the second day program we concentrated on our growth in the west coast because that’s where we could ship well.  I really didn’t have a lot to offer [east coast] dealers on shipping.  But now I do because everything is two days,” Frankel said.

Royal Imaging knows what to offer, because they know the imaging supplies business.  It’s their business philosophy that has made them what they are today.  Giving them the personal touch among distributors, Royal Imaging believes in their word and treating dealers like part of the family.

“We work with our dealers on a personal level,” Frankel explained, “We don’t want to ever become too big, where we can’t be personal with each dealer.  We work with them on every aspect of their business.  We do tracking for them on all orders; tracking numbers and confirmation numbers are on their e-mails the next morning.  Whatever personal service they need, we bend over backwards for our dealers.”

He went on to say, “I don’t have a separate office.  I sit right in the middle of our Sales team because I want to pick up the phone too.  I want customers to know that I’m just like the customer service person.  It doesn’t matter what’s on your business card.  We’re all here for one thing, and that’s to help you out, getting you what you need, and getting it out the door.

25 Years of Royal Imaging

A small group of investors started Royal Imaging in 1979 as a wholesale distributor of consumable office products.  The product mix consisted of writing instruments, paper products, and a general line of office supplies. 

“We started out as an office supply distributor for such companies as 3M, BIC, and Papermate.  We represented nearly everyone in the consumable office supplies business,” said Tom Ghyczy, President of Royal Imaging International, in a 2001 interview.

He went on to say, “With the onset of the superstores, we were priced out of the office products industry.  Our product mix shifted drastically about 10 years ago when OEM copier supplies became available to wholesalers through secondary distribution channels.”

In 2000, Royal Imaging made a move toward imaging supplies.  They wanted to focus on consumables and put something together that would change the image of the company, making it a major competitor in the industry.  They targeted a specific dealer network locally and expanded their product line to over 1000 sku’s. 

Initiating a special team to launch the project, they brought in industry veteran Joel Frankel, who has been in the industry since 1968 and built the West Coast operations for Arlington Industries.  Joining the experiences of Frankel and Tom Ghyczy, whose father founded the company, proved to be exactly what was needed to gain national recognition for Royal Imaging.

Royal Expansion

Today, Royal Imaging International is a twenty million dollar company; and they are working toward expanding their business to dealers nationwide.

Joel Frankel tracks the progression of the company, saying, “We’ve become, in four years, from in [2000] someone saying, ‘who are those guys?’ to now, where everybody knows who Royal Imaging is.”

While keeping growth controlled, Royal Imaging International still looks to develop.  “Our goals for this year are to expand nationwide a little further.  And because of what we’re offering in the freight program, we’ll be more appealing to dealers in other parts of the country,” Frankel says as he looks to the future.

Royal Imaging International has made it through market changes, evolving as the industry transformed.  They will continue this in 2004 as growth seems to be inevitable. 

“We advertise in ENX, we go to two tradeshows a year, and we haven’t had to do anything else because there’s also word of mouth.  People know me in this industry because I’ve been around forever,” Frankel explains, “We have not had to do anything else to keep growing, we just keep growing.”

Getting their new product ideas from dealers, Royal Imaging International will continue to adapt as consumers and imaging machines change.  Frankel’s one certainty is that the market will always exist:

“This is a product, I believe, that’s pretty much recession proof because people have to make copies.  No matter how they make the copies, if it’s through printing, faxing, or copier machines.  All the applications of the office networking have to have some kind of supplies to make the image.”

He went on to say, “As one industry part dies, other things take its place.  And we are right along with that, because we are going to deal with the OEM products and then, as the compatibles come out, we’ll do that too.  We try to give each dealer a choice.  And that’s the key.  We want to give them a choice every time they call.  Do you want to give your customer the OEM or a compatible? We have it for you to give.”