Distributor PrintGlobe® (PPAI 358558), based in Austin, Texas, welcomed a visit on Friday from Tina Berres Filipski, PPAI’s® editor/director of publications, as part of PPAI’s ongoing member outreach initiative. Jamie Dickens, Printglobe’s vice president of sales, met with Filipski and treated her to a tour of the company’s new, modern headquarters that include offices and workspaces for almost 50 employees, a large, glass-walled conference room and a warehouse equipped to handle fulfillment.

The company, which opened in 1995, was one of the first promotional products distributors to go to market via an e-commerce site. Today, it offers a sophisticated, one-stop shopping experience for end buyers across all industries with more than 6,000 products in 37 categories.

“We are a hybrid between a traditional distributor and an e-commerce distributor,” says Dickens, who has been with the company for 14 years. “I think people think that with online orders, they place their order, upload an art file and two weeks later, a coffee mug shows up at their door. We all know that’s not how it works. End users don’t always have great graphic files and they don’t understand what ‘five working days’ means. They need someone to adjust their proof. That takes a level of finesse and service that we are incredibly passionate about.

“I don’t think you could ever create a website that would perfectly produce a custom-printed order and a relationship experience without there being great people behind it,” she says, adding that PrintGlobe’s account managers have been at the company for six years on average and receive product training from supplier reps who come in a couple of times a week.