A new president, in normal times, typically meets with staff, learning names and roles during the first few weeks on the job, as a course for the company gets charted.
For Orange-based paper packaging supplier Paper Mart, new President John Teeter’s start date was March 17, a day after much of the workforce was sent home in response to the pandemic.
“It was a strange way to start at a company,” said Teeter, who still has yet to meet everyone on staff at Paper Mart, one of Orange County’s oldest businesses and one which bills itself as the largest discount packaging supply company in the country.
Teeter’s hiring is a major move for the family-owned company that started 99 years ago by G.A. Frick and Emma Frick as California Towel Supply in 1921.
He succeeds Buffy Simoni and is the first from outside the family to assume the top spot, just ahead of the company’s 100-year anniversary.
And in the nearer term, he’s leading Paper Mart as the company sees spikes in certain parts of the business—more than likely a result from the pandemic—as it prepares for the start of the traditional busy season in late September and early October as customers ready for Halloween and Christmas.
It’s a time when Paper Mart’s supply of printed gift bags, organza pouches, satin ribbons, tissue paper and custom packaging will come in handy for small businesses and individuals alike.
The Business Journal estimates Paper Mart’s annual sales in the neighborhood of $75 million; the privately held company doesn’t disclose revenue.
Business is up this year, the company said. Sales from the independent Etsy seller all the way to a restaurant or baker are strong now, particularly in corrugated boxes for food packaging.
Small- to medium-sized businesses account for about half of Paper Mart’s overall business.
“People are definitely shopping more at home. A lot of restaurants really didn’t have a large to-go business [pre-COVID] and then there’s some parts of [the current sales bump] we don’t understand,” Teeter said.
The company, with a current headcount of 209, furloughed some workers while also losing others through attrition in the past few months, but has since brought workers back. A recent job fair aimed to hire about a dozen for the warehouse with plans to bring on another dozen as Paper Mart enters its peak season.
Major Milestone
As Teeter settles into his position amid unprecedented times, he and the rest of the team have big plans for 2021 when Paper Mart celebrates 100 years in business.
“For a family business to last that long is pretty amazing, so my first priority is to make sure we’re positioned for that next 100 years, and we’ve got a lot of things going on,” Teeter said.
The company is boosting tech in nearly all of its departments, including automation around customer service. A platform allowing for communication with customers across SMS, email or phone where that persons’ complete history with Paper Mart can be accessed is expected to be implemented by year’s end.
That comes on the heels of a website relaunch last year that modernized areas such as search functionality and the ability to customize some products online.
“Our goal is to be the easiest vendor to do business with in the industry, and I think we’re doing a good job of that,” Teeter said.
That’s building on a tech-savvy legacy that began in 1995 with John Frick, grandson of the founding couple, who rolled out the company’s first website.
Today, about 90% of the business is online, although the company still offers will-call for locals looking to pick up their orders at the company’s 275,000-square-foot facility on Batavia Street, in addition to a fleet of trucks for deliveries.
Environmental Actions
The company also takes an eco-friendly approach.
It’s in the midst of obtaining quotes for a solar power project for charging spots at headquarters. It’s also been mulling the purchase of an electric truck to begin testing that technology.
On the consumer-facing side, there’s more demand for biodegradable, reusable or other products less harmful to the environment. So, as certain stock-keeping units hit their peak and then fall, they’re assessed and perhaps taken out of the lineup for something more ecologically friendly, Teeter said.
Teeter, who previously worked at Unisource Worldwide Inc., which merged with xpedx to create Atlanta-based packaging distributor and publishing services provider Veritiv Corp. (NYSE: VRTV), has seen the industry shift in some ways in response to changing tastes.
In the 1990s, for example, talk around reusable and biodegradable materials was not something discussed as much as it is today.
Online Shift
Clearly, e-commerce has changed businesses across the packaging industry.
Nowadays, the executive said, there are more customers who have no need to actually speak with employees on the phone.
“There’s a lot less human interaction, which is … too bad in some ways,” he said.
In other ways, the industry at its roots hasn’t changed much.
“A corrugated box is a corrugated box,” Teeter said. “They’ve changed the paper type and they’ve changed the ink type and they’ve changed other things that make it more ecological, but a container will always be needed.”
As more retail shifts online, packaging and the unboxing experience becomes that much more important, added Vice President of Marketing Allison McGuire.
“It’s not just getting what’s inside; it’s how does it look when it arrives? How do you feel when you get it?” McGuire said of the experiential element to packaging.
To that end, Paper Mart’s product line—numbering some 26,000 SKUs—will continue to be refreshed to respond to changing tastes as the president pointed out how everything has a life cycle, making it one function of his job that will never be completely done.
Said Teeter of the product refresh: “It’s already started, and I don’t think it’ll ever end.”
